Blood & Spirit
by DezoPenguin
Summary: The feelings of those left behind can be as strong as those of the ones who pass into the future; Arisa and Suzuka are forced to come face to face with those feelings when Nanoha's world forces itself into theirs. Expect many Triangle Hearts references.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: A new fic! This time we return to Uminari City, to catch up with Those Left Behind when the main cast moved off to have fun on Midchilda. For those of you familiar with _Triangle Heart 3, _the game and OVA from which the Nanoha franchise spun off of, you'll see a number of familiar character...concepts...from there as well._ _This isn't really an AU story, though, except in one respect: canon (the _StrikerS _manga as well as _StrikerS _Sound Stage 1) establishes that Hayate and the Wolkenritter left Earth for Midchilda when Hayate was 15, after junior high. Presumably Nanoha and Fate left at the same time. Here, it's assumed that they stuck around until after high school graduation. Not that any of them actually show up in the story, but it makes a difference in some of Arisa's attitudes. And the omakes just wouldn't work without Hayate being around!_

_(Though I have to say, the fact that the military includes mage-officers who have only a _junior high school education_ explains a heck of a lot about that conversation Hayate had with Genya about how mages get little respect from the mainstream brass. Enlisting all those nine- and ten-year-olds had to give up something somewhere...)_

_I had a lot of trouble deciding whether or not to use Japanese forms of address in this story. Ordinarily, I include them in my Nanoha fiction, because nearly all of it is set in Midchilda and it makes for a nice character speech tag for Nanoha, Hayate, etc. to be using them while the TSAB natives don't. But in this case the entire story is set in Japan and nearly the entire cast is made up of native Japanese. Therefore, I've decided after much soul-searching to stick with straightforward English forms of address, lest I embarrass myself horribly by having someone use the wrong one somewhere. They're still there in the omakes, though, since those characters address each other in specific patterns that I can keep under control._

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"Why are we here?" Racquel Elantra said, her lip curling in a sneer. "This place is as much of a backwater as any other non-administered world. A population of nulls, fumbling with conventional mechanical technology and brutalizing one another with mass-weapons. The only question is whether their towering ignorance is the cause or the result of their lack of magic."

Her associate chuckled softly.

"Oh, is that what you think? Then I would suggest that you take another look at the materials I provided you. Admiral Gil Graham. Ace of Aces Takamachi Nanoha. The present and only true Master of the Book of Darkness, Yagami Hayate."

Elantra waved her hand.

"Random sports. Every world has them."

"True, true...but what you are overlooking, my dear, is the significance of who--or perhaps 'what' would describe it better--these 'sports' are."

"So what's so fascinating, then?"

He shook his head sadly.

"My dear, haven't you realized? In consulting our records, Non-Administered World 97 has never produced a mage of less than AAA rank."

It got her attention.

"_Never_?"

"Not that the TSAB has any knowledge of. And consider this: on Midchilda, for instance, at least half the population is magically active to at least a minor degree. Yet what are the odds of two S-ranks being born in the same year in the same city?"

He cackled, then, a high, keening laugh as shrill and bitter as the cry of a murder of crows.

"Oh, yes, my dear. This world has much to offer, something I think your employer would be very interested in learning."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"Arisa!"

Arisa Bannings turned her head to see Suzuka Tsukimura waving at her from the door to the locker room.

"Hey, slowpoke, I was just going to leave without you." The truth was, she'd actually been standing around 'just going to leave' for the past ten minutes, but there was no way she was going to tell Suzuka that.

"Sorry; practice ran late. We've got an important match coming up next week; if we win we qualify for the prefectural tournament! Coach is pushing us pretty hard because of that."

Suzuka was the high school's girls' sports star. Fate Harlaown was the only one who could regularly even keep up with her in athletics, but Fate didn't play on any school teams. She didn't want to let her teammates down if the Time-Space Administration Bureau demanded that she drop everything to go rushing off to some other dimension to save someone's life or stop a giant monster from eating the universe or something.

Arisa gritted her teeth.

"Inconsiderate jerks," she muttered under her breath.

Suzuka's eyes widened.

"Arisa, you shouldn't say that about them! Everyone is working very hard for the team to succeed!"

"What? Oh, no, I didn't mean them." Damn. She dragged a hand through her short, honey-blonde hair. "I was talking about the TSAB. They hauled Nanoha, Fate, and Hayate off a week ago on some urgent crisis or another and not a word since. They missed your birthday!"

"They're doing very important work..."

Arisa snorted.

"And they couldn't get someone else to do it? I mean, graduation will be soon enough, and then they get the three of them full-time. Would it kill them to wait a couple of months?"

Suzuka smiled, laughter sparkling in her violet eyes, the hue matching her long, silky fall of hair.

"You miss them, don't you, Arisa?"

"Hey, I'm not an idiot. I know that high school friends go their separate ways after graduation. They go to different universities, get jobs in different cities and end up being just a name on your New Year's card list after a decade or two. But moving to an entirely different planet in a different dimension is pushing it!"

Suzuka giggled.

"I'm sure we'll see them again more often than you think. But...I'll miss everyone, too. And not just them. You're not running off to another world and I'll still miss you."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well, you're applying to Tokyo University, aren't you?"

"Yeah, but so what?"

Suzuka gave her a wry, sad little smile.

"Do you really think I can pass the entrance exams?"

She had a point. Since grade school, Arisa and Nanoha and later Fate had battled for the top spot in their class. There was no doubt that Arisa would pass Japan's most stringent college entrance exams. As for Suzuka...perhaps not so much. Though ironically she was the most poised, elegant, and ladylike of their group, she excelled in the physical, not the academic. Not even Tsukimura money was going to be able to bend that standard.

_Damn_, Arisa thought again. It was turning into that kind of afternoon, the kind where she ended up swearing a lot in her mind over things that she couldn't control. She _hated_ things that she couldn't control.

And the idea of being separated from her best friend bugged her more than she wanted to admit.

"Quit talking about such depressing stuff, anyway," she declared firmly. "Are you being picked up?"

"Mmm-mm. I knew that practice might run long, and I didn't want to inconvenience anyone by making them wait around for me. I'm just going to walk home."

"In that case, why don't I give you a lift?"

"On your bike, you mean?"

"Sure; I carry a spare helmet."

"I'm not sure..." Suzuka said hesitantly. "Are you certain it's safe?"

Arisa snorted again.

"What, are you afraid of motorcycles?"

Suzuka blushed.

"No, not really."

"Better not be. I'll have you know that I'm a first-class rider!"

_She looks so cute when she gets all shy and blushy like that_._ I'm...kinda jealous._ "Shy, dreamy, and ladylike" were not words that described Arisa well. She used terms such as "assertive" and "self-actualized," while certain others were more inclined towards "brash," "loudmouthed," "aggressive," and "Hey, dye your hair red so a fellow can at least have fair warning!" That last one had come from the last guy who'd asked her out. _It's not like he didn't deserve it, hitting on me with those cheesy lines_, she thought defensively.

Arisa glanced at Suzuka again and smiled. That was what real friendship was like. The people who loved you liked the you that you were. That's not to say that they wouldn't bring her up short if she crossed a line somewhere--they'd all do that for each other--but they didn't ask her to change who she was.

"Arisa? Are you okay?"

"What? Oh, yeah, I'm fine. Just thinking, that's all."

"Oh, good. Well...shall we go?" Arisa had already changed out of her school uniform skirt into jeans for easier riding, so it was clear she was ready herself.

"Yep." They set off across the parking lot. "Hey, have you ever ridden a motorcycle before?"

"No, this will be my first time."

"It's really great. I've got to admit, it was a little scary at first, but...it's like I'm finally getting an idea of what Nanoha and the others feel like when they're flying. It's totally different than in a car. You're out in the open air, wind whipping around you...and I guess I've mentioned this about a million times, huh?"

Suzuka giggled again.

"Arisa wouldn't be Arisa without her enthusiasm."

The parking lot was nearly empty. A cluster of teachers' cars in their reserved end, of course--funny how they always seemed to be working late while the administrators left on the dot every day. There were a few other cars, too, of students like Suzuka with late club activities, mostly used subcompacts. A burgundy Toyota minivan and a cream-colored Nissan sedan had adult drivers waiting at the wheel, no doubt there to pick someone up. And Arisa's red-and-white Yamaha was right where she'd left it. As always, she thought, it looked like it was going a hundred kilometers per hour even just standing still. She wasn't that great with the mechanical side of things, yet, but she loved the bike and hoped Suzuka would come to like riding, too, even if just as a passenger.

_Except that in a couple of months, she won't be there._

Damn. She wasn't supposed to be thinking about that.

It soured her mood and her enthusiasm for the coming ride. It made her steel herself and put her head down and march straight across the parking lot.

The driver of the burgundy minivan turned the key. Arisa didn't really notice, so she didn't so much as look around to see who was being picked up. Nor did she take particular notice of the Toyota backing out of its parking spot, then driving towards the school, curving around at the far end of the parking lot, and coming back up in a big U. In fact, she wasn't really aware of it at all until it swept up next to the girls and screeched to a halt, its side doors were flung open, and three men jumped out.

"Hey, what the--?" Arisa started, the broke off when her brain processed what she was seeing. The three men all wore black suits and dark glasses like movie _yakuza_, and one of them was carrying a nasty-looking black automatic.

"All right, now, come with us," the gunman said, jabbing the weapon at Suzuka. But maybe he wasn't as used to carrying firearms as his appearance made him look, or maybe he just felt overconfident because he was dealing with a teenaged girl. Though he threatened her with the weapon, he didn't make sure to keep it pointed at her while he grabbed for her upper arm with his free hand.

Suzuka lashed out, her hand cracking against the gunman's, and the weapon went flying, skittering across the pavement.

"Stop screwing around!" shouted one of the others, but Suzuka ripped her arm free from the gunman's hold and shoved him. He went staggering back, but the man who'd shouted stepped in. He was holding a stun-gun rather than a firearm, and before Suzuka could reach he jammed the electrodes against her body.

"Hey, get away from her!" Arisa shouted. The third man had primed a hypodermic needle, so Arisa rushed at him to try and keep him from getting to Suzuka with whatever drug was inside. The man with the stun-gun, though, reacted too quickly for her, turning and jabbing Arisa with the weapon. Pain rushed through her body; it felt like she'd been kicked by a horse. She dropped limply to the pavement, barely conscious.

"Arisa!" Suzuka screamed. Dimly, Arisa heard the electric crackle of the stun-gun again, then the sounds of scuffling and cursing.

"Come on, get that into her!"

"I'm trying, but she--" A sharp exhalation of breath cut off that voice, like he'd been hit in the belly.

"Help! Let me go!"

"Damn it, what if somebody comes?"

_Gotta get up..._ Arisa's numbed brain thought. _Gotta...help..._

"There!"

Suzuka screamed suddenly.

"What's it doing to her?"

"Just get her in the van, now!"

The girl's cries of pain continued to sound out until the van door slammed shut. Even so, they continued to ring in Arisa's ears though muffled by the running engine and the metal vehicle. Dizzily, she pushed herself to her hands and knees as the van started to move. They were ignoring her, didn't have any use for baggage--and it wasn't like she could tell the cops anything useful as a witness.

_Witness_. A bystander. Someone who could only watch as something horrible happened to her dearest friend.

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_A/N: For this story, because the chapters are kind of short, even for me, the omakes are going to go on the road and accompany every chapter!_

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**Arisa and Suzuka's Omake Roadshow!**

"So you're thinking about getting a motorcycle, Arisa-chan?" Hayate asked.

"Oh, Suzuka told you? Yeah, I've been thinking about it for a few months now, and I have my license for it." She dug into her bookbag and pulled out a magazine, then flipped to a page she'd dog-eared. "Here's the one I'm thinking about getting."

"Hm, a Yamaha. Nice," Hayate said, then looked at her and frowned. "Still, something seems off." Hayate pursed her lips, thinking it over. "You're a dog person...I know! Have you looked at a Ducati?"

Arisa blinked.

"I'm not really fond of the European models...wait, why do you think I should get that one?"

"Because then all we'd need is a blue wig and to teach Fate-chan some summoning magic."

"...leave me out of your cosplay fantasies, Hayate."


	2. Chapter 2

_Witness._ A bystander. Someone who can only watch as something horrible happens to her dearest friend.

The fear and the guilt shot through Arisa like a black, clawing shadow. And she reacted the same way that she always did to feelings like those.

She got mad.

_Like hell I'm going to just stand by! _Adrenaline galvanized her, urgency and emotion helping her to shake off the lingering effects of the shock or at least force her body past them. She forced herself to her hands and knees, then yanked out her mobile phone and snapped off as many pictures of the van as she could manage. She got to her feet and wobbled towards her motorcycle, her stride getting steadier with every step. Meanwhile she pulled up the address book on her phone and dialed.

"Tsukimura residence," a well-modulated voice answered on the second ring,

"Noel? This is Arisa Bannings. Suzuka's been kidnapped from the school parking lot!"

"When?" Noel Ehrlichkeit didn't waste time on protests or babble; the Tsukimura household's senior maid was kind but above all efficient, naturally enough.

"Just now. Three guys in a burgundy Toyota minivan...no, four guys, with the driver." She glanced around even as she was freeing the bike from its spot. "I'm mailing you the photo of the van. Look; I've gotta go," she added, fishing the key out and putting it in the ignition. "I'm going after them. Call you if I find out anything."

_Forget the helmet,_ she thought. _I won't be able to use my phone if I'm wearing it._ Arisa sent the e-mail in a manner of seconds, swung her leg over the Yamaha, and stuffed the phone away in her blazer pocket.

Some people would have called the police instead of the victim's home in that circumstance. Arisa knew better. If anything, the Bannings family was even wealthier than the Tsukimuras. While Arisa didn't _think_ she'd gotten a swelled head over her money (hanging around with girls who were genuine magicians helped with that a _lot_--simple cash, and that earned by somebody else at that, wasn't anything special in comparison to what her friends were), she did understand the realities of being a member of the Bannings family. Depending on the identities and motives of Suzuka's kidnappers, the Tsukimuras might not want police involvement. The law might just get in the way of Suzuka's safe return.

Arisa was in luck, though. Gunning the Yamaha down the school drive, she caught up enough to see the minivan making a right turn up ahead. Running a red light, she lanced through traffic and got to the corner before the kidnappers had time to turn again. The mud-spattered license plate was distinctive to someone looking for it specifically, and the driver was cautiously obeying the traffic laws like a normal car, not tearing away from the scene of the crime as if they were in an action movie.

Since she had them in sight, Arisa backed off on her own chase-scene antics and throttled down. She was following, after all, to see where they took Suzuka, not to rush in and stage a rescue.

_Why isn't Nanoha here?_ she wanted to scream. Of all the times when it might have been genuinely useful to have a real mage as a friend, she had to be somewhere off-dimension! Arisa regretted the thought almost at once. Knowing Nanoha, she'd be ripping her heart out over not being able to help once she found out, even though it wasn't her fault at all.

The real problem wasn't that Nanoha wasn't here. It was that Arisa, who _was_ here, couldn't do anything. She couldn't rush in to the rescue. All she could do was follow, watch, and hope they didn't spot her.

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Suzuka thrashed desperately against the men's arms, but the struggles were weakening; she was unable to keep two of them from getting her up onto a metal table. The back of the van looked more like an ambulance, the table surrounded by a variety of medical equipment.

"I thought that stuff was supposed to knock her out!" one of the kidnappers grunted.

"You let her yank her arm away, Maeda," snapped the one who'd had the needle. "She only got about half the dose."

"Get her strapped down, blast it!" barked the third man, who'd been the one with the stun-gun.

"Hey, give me a hand, Amano."

They forced Suzuka's arm down and yanked a heavy leather strap around it, slamming the tongue into the buckle. The girl's cries and grunts, the way she twisted and tugged at them was more like a wounded animal than a person, but they managed to overcome her efforts and get her other arm down and strapped in as well.

For God's sake, you guys, can't you control one teenaged girl?" shouted the driver.

"You want to come back here and help?" Amano barked. "No? Then just shut up and drive. Mizuhashi, did Tengu give you another dose of the drug?"

Mizuhashi nodded.

"Yea, there's enough for a second shot."

"Well, do it then!"

The buckles rattled against the metal tabletop as Suzuka pulled on the straps, mindlessly yanking on them while her hands drummed frantically.

"Amida!" Maeda breathed. "What's it _doing_ to her?" He wasn't a man who was easily disturbed or shaken--he'd gone along with the kidnapping assignment without a qualm, as he had all the other acts in his twisted past--but what the drug had done to the violet-haired girl scared him. "Mizuhashi?"

Mizuhashi, who'd actually been a registered nurse before being caught stealing drugs from the hospital pharmacy for resale, fished through the cabinets for a hypodermic needle.

"The way Tengu explained it, it basically assaults her body chemistry and beats it into submission until she falls unconscious."

"No wonder she was screaming like that."

Having found the syringe, Mizuhashi fished out a small black case from his inside coat pocket and took from it a vial half-full of a viscous amber fluid. He jammed the needle through the cap and withdrew the plunger, filling the syringe.

Suzuka growled, hissing like a cat and redoubled her struggled. Her leg flailed wildly, her knee catching Amano in the side. He reeled away, crashing into a bank of machines.

"Grab her, will you? At least until I can get this shot into her!"

Mizuhashi neared her with the needle upraised.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Talking on a cell phone over the rush of the wind, the sounds of the road, and above all the purr of the Yamaha's engine was next to impossible; Arisa could barely hear the ring on the other end.

"Tsukimura residence."

"Noel?"

"I'm afraid that she's unavailable--is this Miss Arisa?"

"Yes."

"Ah! This is Falin." That was Noel's younger sister, also a maid for the Tsukimuras. "Noel has gone out in the car, hoping that you would call."

"Hey, finally some good news. They've gone out on the oceanfront road heading southwest so she should actually meet us coming the other way." The curving route was one of the more scenic drives in Uminari City, but didn't get a lot of traffic because the main highway offered a direct shot into the downtown core. That was both a blessing and a curse, since there were fewer people around to interfere, but it would be all that much simpler to spot Arisa following since there was no traffic to blend into. And if any of the kidnappers happened to look out the back windows and see that the girl following them was the same one that they'd had to beat off while kidnapping Suzuka, that...yeah, that would be bad.

"I'll relay the information to Noel. Please keep in touch with any more information, Miss Arisa. I'll stay right by the phone so I'll be ready if you need anything."

"Yeah. Thanks, Falin."

Arisa put the phone away and slowed down a bit, opening up some distance from the kidnappers. There weren't any turnoffs for a while, so she wouldn't lose them, and this way she'd be less likely to be spotted. She still wasn't sure what good she'd be able to do, even with Noel and other employees of Suzuka's family in tow, but she darn well was going to keep on trying.

It bothered her, though. The weapons, the drugs, the men's appearance all implied "pro," and yet they hadn't seen her following as she'd expect experienced criminals being followed by an amateur to do. Was it some kind of trap, or was there something else going on?

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If she'd been inside the Toyota, Arisa would have known that there was no way the kidnappers would have been devoting any attention to anything going on outside the vehicle. Even half-drugged and restrained, Suzuka fought back like a wildcat, occupying all three of them in the attempt to keep her under control and diverting far too much of the driver's attention from what he was doing to be looking in his mirrors for a girl on a motorcycle that he hadn't gotten a look at anyway.

Mizuhashi's approach with the syringe proved to be the tipping point. Suzuka caught sight of the needle and the wounded animal recognized what had injured it. She screamed with feral rage and redoubled her efforts, legs thrashing while she tore at her bindings. There was a shrill whine as a flange bent under the table, but it was the leather that gave way, ripping out around the heavy bolts that had kept it fastened. Suzuka's hand shot up, grabbed Mizuhashi's arm as he reached for her, and wrenched it viciously so that the bones in his forearm snapped audibly. Howling in pain, he dropped the syringe as Suzuka yanked him over into Amano.

"What the hell?"

"Get the syringe!"

"Stop her before she--"

Maeda was cut off as a foot slammed into his ribcage, knocking him sprawling back against the rear doors. Amano fought for balance and came up with his stun-gun again while Mizuhashi dropped to the floor. Amano thrust the stun-gun at Suzuka; she shuddered as it jolted her again. His face was a mask of hate; somewhere along the line her steady resistance had changed the job from a professional one, a business matter, to something personal. Anger burned in his eyes, the desire to hurt her just for its own sake.

She could see it in his expression, the naked threat there, and she raked her nails across his eyes. Blood spattered and he screamed, reeling away and tripping as he staggered away so that he tumbled into the front seat, slamming against the driver. The van swerved, grinding up against the guardrail.

Suzuka tore her other arm free of the straps.

"Keep away!" Maeda babbled. "Don't touch me, you monster!" Whatever he saw in her face terrified him; he yanked out his gun and fired, the bullet punching through Suzuka's abdomen. The sudden pain left her unable to keep her balance in the lurching car; she fell off the table, nearly onto Mizuhashi.

The driver pushed at the thrashing, wounded man in his lap.

"Damn it, get off me or we're going to wreck!"

Amano flailed desperately. Blood was running into his eyes, blinding him, and he wasn't really sure of what was happening. He thrashed like a landed fish in the driver's lap, trying to regain his balance, and ended up jabbing the stun-gun he barely knew he was holding into the other man.

That finished it.

The van fishtailed completely out of control. A tire blew from the sudden stress, having already been scraped down by the guardrail. The Toyota spun across the thankfully empty lanes of traffic. Maeda was flung wildly aside; his head struck a jutting corner of one of the machines and he went out. His body crashed into the back doors and they were flung open; he tumbled out onto the street, hitting the pavement and rolling several times before flopping to a halt. The van hit the rock wall on the street side opposite the sea at an odd angle, a corner catching and scraping, and then it teetered and flipped before it hit the wall again going into a curve and came to a sudden, final stop.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Arisa gunned the engine as she saw the wreck play out in front of her. She had no idea what had caused it, but the sudden fright drove out any logical ideas of hanging back or being aware of her own limits. _Suzuka!_ She just reacted, closing in quickly, dodging around the body of the man who'd fallen out the back. She saw the van crash into the rocks, first the nose, then swinging around so that the undercarriage crushed into stone. A metal table on wheels tumbled out, and a man's body ended up with both legs hanging macabrely over the edge of the door.

Arisa only peripherally noticed these things as she stopped the bike and hopped off. What caught her attention was the violet-haired girl in school uniform that had been flung out after the first man but before the impact.

"Suzuka! Suzuka!" she shouted as she ran over. _Is she all right? Does she need an ambulance? How long will it take Noel to get here?_

Impossibly, the girl seemed to be moving. At first she just twitched, but then she actually rolled over and began to sit up.

"Suzuka, don't move; you could be hurt! Oh, God, you _are_ hurt--all that blood!" Arisa babbled as she caught sight of the red-soaked shirt over her belly. "Hold on, I'll call for an ambulance, and Noel's already on her way. Just hold on!" She dropped to her knees next to her friend and reached into her pocket for her phone.

Suzuka grabbed her wrist.

"Suzuka?"

A rasping, gurgling noise rose from the back of Suzuka's throat, like an unnatural mating of a hiss and a growl.

"Ow! That hurts!" Though injured, her grip was like a steel vise on Arisa's arm. Arisa turned to see what was going on and recoiled in shock. The eyes that stared at her weren't their usual violet, but a glowing red, their pupils having resolved themselves into vertical slits like a cat's. Arisa could feel nails like claws digging into her skin, and she flinched back nervously.

"Suzuka, what are you doing? Get a hold of yourself!"

When Suzuka leaned in towards her, the grip on her arm keeping Arisa from running away, the injured girl's mouth opened and Arisa could see canines elongated into twice their usual length, Suzuka's neat, perfect teeth turned into needlelike fangs.

"Suzuka, wait! It's me, Arisa! Don't do this!"

Gasoline fumes from the van's ruptured tank tickled her nose as Suzuka leaned in and nuzzled at her neck, working her lips past her collar until they centered over the jugular vein. Arisa tried to pull away, but the other girl was far too strong for her. All she could do was bite her lip as she felt the icy stab of pain. She had too much pride to scream like some silly twit in a horror movie, after all! In the next instant the pain was swept away by a wave of sudden pleasure, her senses swam, and she knew no more.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The blaze consuming the wrecked minivan, sparks from broken equipment having triggered gas fumes once the proper fuel-air mixture was achieved, cast back a reflection in the glossy polish of the black Mercedes sedan. The car pulled to a stop and woman in a maid's uniform, her short hair pale lavender in color, got out. Noel dismissed the wreck at once; she was concerned with only one thing.

"Miss Suzuka!"

She ran to the girl's side at once. Suzuka was sitting in the middle of the road, legs curled up beneath her, cradling the lifeless body of her beloved friend in her arms while tears streamed down her face in silent, tormented sobs.

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_A/N: And thus we encounter the first _Triangle Hearts_ reference (actually, the first and second, since there's another one slipped in there, but we won't discuss that--see if you can spot it yourself). Shinobu Tsukimura, Kyouya's "official" pairing in T.H., is a vampire of the "living being/runs-in-families" type popular in manga and anime. Which of course implies that her younger sister is, too. The _Nanoha_ franchise even hints at it (in the same way as it tosses in an offhand reference to Shiro being "injured on his job" without actually explaining that he's a bodyguard) when she gets sucked into the Book of Darkness's barrier spell in _A's_ as well as in the _A's_ manga when she shows off superhuman physical ability in gym-class dodgeball. For this story, I've decided to basically adopt the attitude (pretty common in the fandom) that _Triangle Hearts 3_ events are canonical unless specifically contradicted by _Nanoha_ canon (such as Shiro being hurt rather than being dead)._

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**Arisa & Friends Omake Roadshow!**

"Why were you picking on her anyway? That's mean!" First-grader Nanoha didn't have Raising Heart yet, but her sense of justice was fierce without magic.

Arisa pointed at Suzuka.

"She's...she's a total freak! She has _fangs_!"

"You can't make fun of people just because they need dental work."

"She's super strong! She caught one of the second-graders with one hand when he fell off the jungle gym."

"Helping people is a good thing!"

"Look at her thermos! She's not drinking milk; that's _blood_! She's a vampire!"

That one at least got Nanoha to blink. She turned, then tipped her head to the side to look at Suzuka curiously, as if thinking of something.

"Um...what's your name?"

"Suzuka. Tsukimura Suzuka."

Nanoha's face lit up.

"Oh, that explains it! You look just like your sister!"

"You...know my oneesan?" Suzuka said hesitantly. Nanoha gave her a brilliant smile.

"Mmn! I'm Takamachi Nanoha. Shinobu-san works at our family's café, Midoriya."

"Then, you're Kyouya-san's sister, aren't you?"

"Mmn," Nanoha repeated happily.

"I...didn't think Shinobu would tell people about us..."

"Well, it was sort of by accident. She and Kyouya-niichan were watching a movie on TV one night, and she was nibbling on his neck, and I was going to tell Mama because she doesn't want them kissing and stuff while they're supposed to be babysitting, but they said she was just sucking his blood 'cause she's a vampire."

"Wait, and that's okay?" Arisa tried to wrap her mind around the concept.

"Well, yeah. Papa always says it's not right to be prej-- predu-- mean to people of other races and cultures just because they do things differently than we do. Aren't you part American? That's the same thing, right?"


	3. Chapter 3

The corpse of Arisa Bannings lay in one of the Tsukimura residence's few Japanese-style rooms, one that the family maintained as something of a monument to the past. Noel had chosen to place it there, frankly, because it was simple and uncluttered and nothing would be disturbed, but in its way it was suitable as well. The room's austerity was fitting, somehow, for the stark reality of death.

Suzuka had not left the dead girl's side, refusing all of Noel and Falin's attempts to draw her away. The maids knew that she needed rest and comfort to recover from the repeated, brutal shocks she'd gone through, that she should be tucked away in bed, but she would not budge.

This stubborn refusal was why they'd brought Arisa's corpse back at all. It was ridiculous to take it to the Tsukimura house, Noel knew. It threatened to open a can of worms that could lead to disaster for the family. The wealth and power of the Bannings family were not things that could be lightly ignored, after all. It should have been left behind--perhaps burned in the wrecked van and the story switched about which girl had been kidnapped--or at least a safer disposal arranged. But to separate the two would have been impossible without brute force, which Noel would not use on Suzuka.

"Is...is there any change?" Falin asked as Noel emerged from the room, carrying an untouched tea tray.

Noel shook her head sadly.

"But it's not her fault!" Falin protested.

"I know that. She was kidnapped, viciously assaulted, drugged, shot, and further injured by the wreck." Suzuka had told the maids the whole story, all the while putting the full blame for everything on herself. "There was nothing conscious about it. She was near death and her body reacted, seizing the first source of blood available to heal. It was just bad luck that it proved to be Miss Suzuka's best friend."

"She wouldn't have cared even if it had been a complete stranger. Miss Suzuka would still have rather died than take someone else's life to save her own."

"That's true, but it makes it even worse for her. She feels guilt for the act itself over and above her guilt for Miss Bannings."

"But it's all so unfair!" Falin wailed.

Noel sighed. Her sister was Suzuka's personal maid and so inclined to empathize directly with the girl's point of view. Not that Noel didn't, but she was older besides and tended to take the long view.

"Particularly for Miss Bannings."

Falin winced.

"I know! It's horrible!"

"I'm going to call Miss Shinobu in the morning. She ought to be able to help Miss Suzuka better than anyone else could." Though the maid had to wonder how much even Suzuka's sister could really help under these circumstances. Shinobu had never killed anyone while lost in blood frenzy, to say nothing of harming someone she was closest to. Noel could only imagine what the girl was going through.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

_I'm a monster._

It really wasn't all that difficult a concept, when Suzuka thought about it. Of course she was a monster. She was a _vampire_, after all. They were such ubiquitous monsters that popular culture had begun to find them trite, even boring. Vampires stopped being monsters and became anti-heroes, then brooding, Byronic romantic leads, then...people, like they were just another ethnic group with odd dietary restrictions.

That's how Suzuka's friends had always treated her.

_"Scared of you?"_ she still remembered Arisa saying. _"Are we scared of Nanoha 'cause she's from a family of ninja dessert bakers? Or Fate because she's an artificial mage clone? Or Hayate...well, okay, we're afraid of Hayate but just because she's Hayate, not because she could blow up the city with a dirty look. So why would we get all weird because you're a vampire?"_

But she'd been wrong. She should have been afraid. Her examples hadn't been valid, because the three magicians, for all their power, were all still people. Suzuka wasn't, even if surrounded by family and friends and ordinary school life she'd forgotten it herself until it was too late. She looked human and talked like a human, but she was as much a monster as any movie Count Dracula. She might have had excuses, she was injured, she was half-drugged, she wasn't in her right mind, but they weren't really excuses. Drive a human out of their mind with drink or drugs or pain and they might react in a hundred different ways.

_Strip me of my self-control and I turn Arisa into...into _food! Arisa, who meant more to her than anyone else in the world.

_I'm not even _enough_ of a monster to fix that_. In books and movies, a vampire's victims would rise again as vampires themselves, but it didn't work that way for the Tsukimuras. They weren't the immortal undead, but creatures who were born, grew up, and died as vampires. Essentially they were a different species than humanity, one that had evolved to live among its natural prey as camouflage. Suzuka had lived among them so long, so thoroughly, that she'd basically forgotten herself.

And now she was in the ridiculous position of a human who went to a sushi bar and wept for the death of the fish.

Somewhere in the house, a clock began to toll the hour, slowly striking off the twelve chimes for midnight. Suzuka had cried for hours, but she had no more tears to shed. Her eyes ached, but were dry.

Tears could not atone.

Her eyes fell on the stand holding her family's _daisho_. The Tsukimuras had been samurai once, during the Edo period, living by human traditions despite what they were.

_Maybe...maybe that would be appropriate?_ she thought.

She took down the _wakizashi_, the shorter sword of the pair. Though lethal, it was generally not wielded in combat against enemies, but it had one function commonly known even among foreigners: _seppuku_, honorable suicide by disembowelment.

_At least I can offer Arisa a human death_.

Momentarily Suzuka worried that to do this would just trigger the same blood-frenzy that had resulted in Arisa's murder. She didn't deserve a quick and clean end, but if it had to be that way to protect other people she might have to take that option. Then she realized that Noel and Falin were the only other ones in the house. Wounded Suzuka would be too weak to go seek out other prey, and the maids were safe enough from a lust for blood.

That was good. She didn't want to avoid any of the suffering that she owed Arisa's memory.

"Arisa, I'm so sorry," she whispered, composing herself. She knelt once more facing the corpse, then reached for the hilt.

"Hey, you're not doing what I think you are?"

A sad little smile formed on Suzuka's lips. _I could so easily imagine her saying that._

"Damn it, you are. Stop that!"

Suzuka's head snapped up. Once hearing Arisa's voice could be just delusion, a trick of the mind, but twice?

A hand reached over her shoulder and grabbed the sheathed sword. Suzuka was so surprised that the _wakizashi_ was effortlessly torn from her grasp.

"Geez, I'm glad you had to sit around and brood a while before you got this stupid. If you hadn't waited until after midnight..."

"A-Arisa?"

It was impossible. The corpse was in front of her, still and unmoving, yet when Suzuka turned her head...there she was as well, holding the sword and wearing the belligerent expression that Suzuka knew so well. Even her clothes were identical, right down to the smudges on the knees of her jeans from when she'd knelt down by Suzuka on the road.

"Yes, of course it's me. Please, tell me you're not diving into some whiny pit of angst over all this."

"B-but how..." Her head swiveled from the living Arisa to the dead Arisa and back again. "I don't understand! How can you be here and there at the same time?"

Arisa scowled. She'd never particularly liked puzzles. Unlike some people, who relished the process of solving a problem, Arisa treated unknown situations like obstacles to overcome: unpleasant and best put behind her as quickly as she could manage.

"I think the technical term is 'ghost.'"

In stressful moments, the brain often fastened on minutiae as a way of insulating itself against larger shocks. So it proved with Suzuka.

"But...you have feet!"

"Hey, American here, remember? Sure, I've spent nearly my whole life in this country, but that doesn't mean that I have to keep up to its supernatural standards."

In spite of everything--or maybe because of it--Suzuka giggled. "That's so like Arisa. But...how is this possible?"

"I don't know. But they say that a ghost is a soul with unfinished business on Earth that won't let them rest, and believe me, I've got a few things to say about this whole 'dead' thing!" She cracked her knuckles theatrically to make the point.

Suzuka paled.

"I...see." She bowed her head. "I'm sorry, then, for trying to kill myself and steal your vengeance."

Arisa bopped her on the head with the tip of the sheathed sword.

"Stop that! Geez, what's _with_ you?"

"But you just said--"

"Yeah, yeah, ghostly revenge. But not on _you_. Why would I want that?"

"Arisa, I _killed_ you. I was supposed to be your...your friend, and I--"

Arisa bopped her again.

"Oh, please. If some villain threw James Bond's girlfriend into a tiger pit, is Bond going to get mad at the tigers or the guy who threw her in? I thought you liked cats better than that."

"But--"

"No 'buts'! That's _my_ life you've got running through your veins now, Suzuka, and that means _I_ get to decide what you do with it. I'm telling you right now, I'm not letting you take my gift and waste it by committing suicide out of misplaced guilt! Got it?"

"Y-yes..."

"Good. I don't want to hear another word about you killing me." Her voice dropped to the point where Suzuka couldn't hear her clearly and she muttered, "Besides, I'd probably have let you do it if I'd had a chance to think about it."

"Did you say something?"

"N-never mind!" Arisa huffed. "Anyway, we've got work to do, and--"

A soft knock on the door interrupted whatever else she was going to say. The screen slid open, and Falin slipped her head around the side.

"Pardon me, Miss Suzuka, but I heard voices and--oh!" Falin's eyes took in the scene at once, and then suddenly her face hardened into anger. "Get away from my mistress, you unclean spirit! I won't let you hurt Miss Suzuka!" In the next instant she was charging into the room directly at Arisa.

"Falin, no!"

"H-hey, wait a minute--"

The maid smacked into Arisa and she went sailing back, hitting the wall with a thump. Falin planted herself firmly between the two girls, feet set in a fighting stance.

"Geez, Falin, what's up with you?" Arisa said.

"Get out of this house and leave her alone! I'm sorry you died, but it wasn't the mistress's fault and you have no right to be haunting her!"

"Falin, stop it!" Suzuka protested, getting to her feet and yanking on the maid's right arm.

"The irony here is that she actually agrees with me," Arisa noted, nodding towards Falin. Unsurprisingly, she wasn't hurt despite the force of the blow; she was, after all, already dead and her physical body was just a manifestation of whatever supernatural powers she had.

"Falin, Arisa just saved my life!" Suzuka shouted. That got through to her the way nothing else could.

"What?" She half-turned towards Suzuka, though still keeping Arisa in her field of vision.

"It's true! I...I was going to...and she took the sword away from me."

Falin gasped.

"Miss Suzuka, you didn't--"

"...I'm sorry."

"You'd better be," Arisa said. "You've got way too many people who care for you to start doing crazy stuff like that." She sighed and grumbled. "Bad enough I got killed without having my death turn into a farce."

"Arisa..."

"And shouldn't you be getting to bed soon, Suzuka? It's a school night."

Suzuka just blinked in surprise at her friend.

"What?" Arisa asked. "Presuming that I don't up and vanish with the dawn or anything like that, tomorrow's a new day. I'm certainly not letting those jerks put a crimp in my life." She paused, then sighed. "Okay, bad choice of words, but you get my point!"

Despite herself, Suzuka could actually feel her mouth twitch into a smile. Living or ghost, Arisa was Arisa.

It didn't occur to her to wonder why the relief she felt at that thought was so strong.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

_A/N: Just for the record, I _am_ aware that a woman should commit ritual suicide with a dagger rather than the _wakizashi_. Somehow, though, I don't think it suits the scene to have Suzuka thinking that way--if she's even aware of it._ _Incidentally, for those who didn't know, in _Triangle Heart 3_, Arisa (her last name being Lowell rather than Bannings...not quite sure why they changed it...) was, in fact, a ghost. She changed much more than the Tsukimuras, since Arisa Bannings clearly wasn't a spirit during _MGLN _through the end of _A's_, but she's finally getting there..._

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

**Arisa & Friends Omake Roadshow!**

"These shows on spiritualism and hauntings are really creepy!" Fate said. It gave her a good excuse to snuggle close to Nanoha on the couch, but what was the point of that when she was too creeped out to enjoy it?

"I think they pretty much just make it up for TV, Fate-chan," Nanoha said. "They use paid actors and special effects so it seems like there are really hauntings."

"Now, hold on, Nanoha-chan," Hayate said. "I know that you want to reassure Fate-chan, but it's not good to give her the wrong idea. Just because our magic works differently doesn't mean that spiritualism is all fakery and wishful thinking."

"You don't mean--" Fate yelped.

"I'll demonstrate what I mean." She fished her cell phone out of her pants pocket and dialed, then held the phone out so the other girls could hear. It rang twice, then was picked up.

"Hello, Arisa Bannings speaking."

"See? I'm talking to the dead _right now_!"


	4. Chapter 4

_A/N: Warclam: I got your message all right, but you need to enable private messaging or I can't answer it!_

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

It ought to be different, Arisa thought. A person's life ought to change, somehow, when they died and came back as a spirit. Instead, her parents had yelled at her for not calling and telling them that she was spending the night at Suzuka's home, grounded her and took her bike away for two weeks, and she was back at her desk in class, listening to her English-language teacher struggle to have an accent as good as her own.

She couldn't help but wonder how long it was going to last, this unnatural existence. Sometimes ghosts were supposed to be tied to a particular place, but she'd been able to roam around pretty much at will. Other stories tied them to a particular task, and when that was accomplished the spirit would move on to the afterlife. Arisa wasn't sure she necessarily liked that idea. The afterlife seemed scary. Truthfully, she had a hard time thinking of herself as "dead," despite the good show she'd put on for Suzuka's benefit. "Changed," maybe, but not "dead," with all the grim finality that represented.

When the lunch bell rang, she was reminded of another change: she wasn't the slightest bit hungry.

"This is ridiculous," she declared, looking down at her _bento_ box. She and Suzuka were seated out beneath a cherry tree. The air was a little too cool for that, she supposed, but that didn't really matter now. "I haven't had a thing to eat in twenty-four hours, and I'm not hungry at all!"

"Well, it only stands to reason," Suzuka offered, "what with--" Her voice trailed off. Arisa was torn between wanting to put Suzuka's guilt in its place and her own discomfort with the situation. As always, her concern for her friend won out. Besides, her natural reaction was always to push onwards and let the chips fall where they may.

"Hey, if the vampire can sit here enjoying a nice lunch, then why not the ghost? It's supernatural bigotry, that's what it is!"

"Um, Arisa...you're glowing."

"What?" She glanced down at herself and realized that it was true; a kind of reddish-orange light was flowing over her body. Arisa tried to relax, taking a deep breath (not that she actually needed air) and the glow faded away.

"That was kind of weird," she decided. "I'm glad no one else is around. It almost looked like I was on fire!"

"Mmn! Well, you have always been hot-tempered, Arisa. Maybe now it's literal?"

Arisa groaned, but was secretly happy. If Suzuka could make jokes, then she was at least trying to accept the situation.

"That was awful. But hey, wait! I wonder if that means I can throw fire and stuff? That would be a cool power. It beats the heck out of the infinite wardrobe thing."

"Infinite wardrobe?"

"Oh, yeah, you weren't around for that. Okay, so when I got home this morning I went to change into my school uniform. But when I took off my shirt, the instant I let it out of my hand, it vanished! If we had a Japanese-style house I'd probably have noticed it with my shoes first, because they vanished, too, when I kicked them off."

"It kind of makes sense. I mean, your real clothes are still on your...are still in my house."

"That's what I figured. So it was like, what I was wearing was just a manifestation of whatever made me appear in the first place. So I tried imagining myself wearing my uniform and poof! There it was."

"That's kind of neat!"

Arisa nodded.

"Yeah. If nothing else, I'll never have to worry about forgetting my gym clothes again. And it works for everything, too: fancy gowns, accessories like ribbons, even jewelry. Though not stuff like purses; I guess they're not enough of 'me' to be able to create like that."

Suzuka giggled.

"You sound like you had fun."

Arisa tapped her index fingers together in a nervous little gesture.

"I, uh...kind of played around with it a little this morning," she admitted.

"You're blushing!" Suzuka exclaimed.

"Huh?" Arisa touched her face. Her cheeks didn't _feel_ warm. She dug her compact out of her school bag, then realized that it wouldn't do a lot of good. As she'd learned the hard way when trying to see how she looked in her new outfits, she didn't have a reflection. It was such a gyp! She sighed and put the compact away.

"What's wrong?"

"No reflection. I was really blushing?"

"Uh-huh."

"Weird. I mean, I don't think I have blood or anything to blush _with_. I guess my appearance just naturally reflects my mood." She sighed. "Darn it, Suzuka, the whole no-reflection thing is right out of _Dracula_. So why do you have one and I don't?" She folded her arms across her chest and snorted. "Now I'm _sure _it's pro-vampire bigotry. Just because you're the _popular_ supernatural creature!"

"Um...I don't really think that's it, Arisa..."

"Probably it's because I'm dead and you're alive," Arisa confronted the issue squarely. "I mean, this body is just a projection of magical force, right? Maybe it only exists in the minds of the people looking at it, by telepathy or something? Damn, I bet that means I don't show up in photos, either. Hey, I could have a great career as a spy or a thief, though. I could sneak in and out of places and the security cameras wouldn't even notice me!"

"Can you walk through walls?" Suzuka stayed on the relatively safe ground of "cool ghost powers" instead of dealing with questions like "dead."

"Yeah, but it's a little tricky, My body kind of wants to be solid." She'd tried that one out this morning, too, so she figured she could demonstrate. She concentrated hard, and gradually felt herself growing lighter and lighter. The adjective was literal as well as figurative; she began to glow with a pale luminescence, skin and clothes alike shining from within as if moonlight was filling her up. Suzuka gasped in surprise and Arisa waved her hand, effortlessly passing it back and forth through the tree trunk. She returned to normal, grinning at Suzuka's stunned expression. "I don't like doing it for too long, though. It makes me feel a little light-headed."

Suzuka groaned.

"Arisa!"

"Payback. You deserved that for your 'hot-tempered' pun," Arisa told her archly. A loud sigh was her only answer. She put the lid on her bento box. "Did you want any of this? It's kind of a waste if nobody eats it. I guess I'll start saying that I'll buy my lunch from now on; that way they won't make me anything else." She paused for a second, realizing that she was getting no response. A sidealong glance revealed that Suzuka was looking down into her lunch instead of at her. "Hey, Suzuka?"

The other girl didn't move. It was starting to worry Arisa.

"Suzuka, is everything okay?" She reached out to touch her shoulder.

"No!" Suzuka suddenly exclaimed. "No, everything's _not_ okay! You're _dead_, Arisa! How can you be so _calm_ about this?" She fisted her hands in the front of Arisa's blazer, tears starting to stream from her eyes.

"Y-yeah, that is kind of funny, isn't it?" Arisa stammered. _Geez, what do I say?_ "I mean, you're usually the calm one who smiles and holds me back when I start losing my cool. And believe me, I would like nothing more than to go out there and start kicking some righteous ass. But I don't know who's responsible for this, and while I admit this ghost thing has me scared...um...to death...I'm a lot more worried about you than I am about me."

Suzuka blinked, clearing the welling tears.

"About me?"

"Yeah, you know, guilt, angst, depression? Suzuka, you were contemplating suicide last night. That's a _lot_ scarier than anything I'm feeling about myself right now."

"I...oh..."

"See?" Arisa managed a smile, then poked her in the sternum. "So you'd better shape up, okay? Until you get your feet solidly under you, I can't let off a really good rant about all this, and holding it in can't be good for my blood pressure, even if I don't have blood!"

Suzuka couldn't help but grin and laugh at that, making Arisa sigh inwardly in relief. She pulled out a handkerchief and was about to offer it to Suzuka, then changed her course and brushed the lingering tears from the other girl's cheek. The gesture made Suzuka blush slightly, and seeing that Arisa quickly stammered out an excuse.

"It would have just vanished if I let go of it."

"I thought that you couldn't create accessories?"

"N-never mind that!" Arisa spun away, sure her cheeks were flaming, but a surge of warmth cut through her embarrassment and confusion when she heard Suzuka's familiar giggle.

"Now there's the Arisa I know."

"Hey, I'm still me, right?" She pulled her knees to her chest and hugged them. "I've just...changed a little, that's all."

The girls looked at each other, wondering to just what extent that was true.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"You failed."

A thin, bony finger jabbed at Tengu's chest.

"You _failed_."

Tengu flinched. He did not look like the sort of person that would flinch. He was a tall man, over six feet tall and whipcord-lean with the sleek musculature of a swimmer or gymnast. His skin was so dark that it looked jet-black in any light dimmer than the noonday sun, but despite that his features were purely Japanese. His black hair was wispy, feathery, and pulled back in a ponytail to keep from flying away. His hands were strong and powerful, his nails curved into sharp points like talons. He wore heavy steel-toed work boots, black jeans, a black T-shirt with yellow lettering advertising a club in Kabuki-cho, and a black leather jacket ornamented with brass studs instead of the usual chrome. He looked dangerous and he _was_ dangerous, but he still flinched.

"The men died in the attempt. We cannot be sure what happened," he attempted to explain.

"All I care about is that they did not bring her to _me_! Your tools were flawed!"

Tengu nodded.

"It is so. They were common criminals, wannabes. This made them willing, available pawns, but clearly--"

"Then you should not have used them!" He didn't even wait to hear out Tengu's attempt to fix the blame on the dead underlings. "If they weren't _capable_ of doing the job, you should not have employed them. You used _flawed_ tools!"

Tengu bowed his head.

"Yes, Master."

"Do not fail me again. I have no time to _waste_ teaching you lessons you should already know. Do not forget what state you were in when I found you--or that I can return you to it at any time."

"No, Master."

"Very well. Now get going. I have much work to do, and time presses!"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

**Arisa & Friends Omake Roadshow!**

"I cannot believe this!" Arisa hurled her jacket towards the couch in a fit of pique. The fact that it vanished the instant it left her hand stole most of the satisfaction from the act.

"What's wrong, Arisa?" Suzuka asked.

"My parents, that's what! I get one lousy speeding ticket and they ground me for two weeks! I wouldn't even be here now if this study session hadn't been set up in advance and you guys weren't counting on me to help you work on your English."

"I'm glad they let you come," Fate admitted. "Coming from a culture where magical translation is quick and easy, actually learning foreign languages took me by surprise as a child and I never really caught up."

"It's okay, Fate-chan," Hayate said, patting her on the shoulder. "A girl without weaknesses lacks the all-important _moe_ factor. Just look at Arisa."

"If you don't think being dead is a weakness, keep talking like that and you can judge for yourself," Arisa grumbled, sitting down at the table.

"Though one should never overlook the appeal of a _tsundere_," Hayate went on, completely unabashed. "Are you sure we can't convince you to put your hair up in twintails?"

Arisa groaned and dropped her head onto the table.

"Someone just kill me now."

"Um...I don't think there would be much point to that," Nanoha murmured. "But come to think of it, Arisa, how is it that you were grounded? I mean, you're a ghost, after all. Isn't that a little, um, silly?"

"You'd think so, yeah, but a little thing like that doesn't slow down my mom. With her it's all, 'as long as you're haunting my house, young lady, then you'll follow my rules.'"


	5. Chapter 5

"I have made some discreet inquiries into the circumstances of yesterday's crash. The police believe it to be simply an accident at this point. I do not believe that you'll have to worry about being dragged into any investigation, Miss Suzuka."

Suzuka nodded.

"Thank you, Noel."

The maid shook her head.

"No thanks are necessary, Miss Suzuka. This is part of my duty to your family."

It was interesting, Suzuka thought, how different clothes could completely change the impression a person made. Noel in her traditional maid's uniform presented the image of luxurious service, of the ways of Western nobility of bygone years with all the authority and decadence it implied. In her light brown business suit and dark glasses, she implied a very different kind of service, the lethal efficiency of a political expediter or a manipulator in high finance, completely suited to the modern era.

The latter impression was not wrong. While it was Suzuka's aunt who was technically her guardian and the nominal head of the family, it was Noel who handled the tasks of maintaining the Tsukimura holdings, their extensive investment portfolio and network of contacts in various spheres.

"The four men who attempted to kidnap you have all been identified through dental records," she went on. "It would ordinarily have taken much longer, but all four had criminal histories and were therefore in the system. No evidence of any actual crime was found at the scene beyond the possession of illegal weapons, however, so it's believed that this was an accident that simply happened to victimize shady characters rather than innocents. I believe that will be the final result unless the autopsies reveal suspicious injuries, which is unlikely as the violence of the crash would provide a probable justification for any broken bones or the like. I think the incident can be considered closed, from a police perspective."

"Thank you," Suzuka said again. She felt like she ought to be giving instructions, outlining what they knew, and suggesting new plans, approaches to their situation. But she had no ideas at all.

_If only Fate or Hayate was here._ From what she understood, Fate was an Enforcer, some kind of investigator or detective for the TSAB, and Hayate had also been a special investigator for her own service branch before transferring her career path towards the high command. Either one had the experience and skills necessary to sift through the available facts and plan their next course of action.

In truth, though, they weren't whom Suzuka wanted there. They would be _helpful_, both for their skills and because they were good friends, but they weren't whom she _needed_. It was Arisa that she wanted sitting beside her, working on this crisis. Truthfully, when the other girl wasn't there it was like some part of her was missing, as if "Arisa&Suzuka" was a third entity created between the two of them. And after the horrors of the previous evening, the despair that had followed, Arisa's tangible presence with her was something she needed even more.

Suzuka was not a particularly religious person, but she had offered fervent prayers of thanks to whatever God, Buddha, or _kami_ had brought Arisa back to her. That by itself was miraculous enough, but that she didn't hate Suzuka for what she'd done--that, indeed, Arisa didn't so much forgive her as openly stated that Suzuka hadn't done anything wrong that needed forgiveness--was a blessing she could never repay.

"Noel, is there anything else we can do?" Suzuka asked. She might not understand the technical details, but at the very least she could do her best to try and find the people that Arisa held responsible for what had happened. Maybe if she knew more about them, she might even come to accept Arisa's opinion that the kidnappers were completely to blame.

"That would depend on what you want to accomplish," Noel responded practically.

"What do you think? To find those bastards and teach them a lesson before they try to do anything to Suzuka againཀཁ

Mistress and maid both turned their heads in surprise; neither had heard anyone enter.

"Arisaཀ"

"Darn right. You're not leaving me out of this council-of-war stuff."

"Um...but didn't you say that you were grounded?"

"Kind of hard to ground someone who can walk through walls," Arisa replied with a grin. "Though I'm going to have to apologize to the gardener about the rose bush. I kind of forgot that I was on the second floor, so when I got through the wall I was startled to find myself floating, went solid again, and fell into the shrubbery. At least all the rips in my clothes healed themselves over. And when I went intangible again to go through your front gate, all the dirt and leaves and things just fell right through me. I'll save a fortune on laundry this way!" She paused, then added, "I did ring the bell at the front door, though. Falin let me in. It seemed kind of rude just to pop in without asking."

Suzuka had giggled at the rosebush story, before her face settled into its usual smile. Arisa pulled up a chair and sat down.

"So how much did I miss?" she asked.

"Very little," said Noel, and repeated what she'd told Suzuka.

"Did any of those guys belong to some gang? Were they _yakuza_?"

"Apparently not. They were ordinary criminals. Very likely they were hired for this job."

"But the police wouldn't check on that, because they didn't know that there _was_ a job."

"As we prefer."

Arisa nodded.

"Hey, I've been keeping Suzuka's secret for eleven years and Nanoha's for nine; I'm not going to blab now. Besides, dead girls tell no tales, right?"

Suzuka suppressed a wince. Arisa's newfound fondness for ghost jokes disturbed her, but she supposed it was like she'd said at lunch, that what had happened scared her too, and making fun of it helped to keep that fear in check. Something that could be mocked was something that wasn't as big and scary.

"I didn't mean to imply otherwise, Miss Arisa," Noel said, almost apologetically.

"Anyway, so that's a lead, right? Something we could look into?"

Noel nodded.

"Quite possibly, though I'm not certain where we would properly begin. Obtaining copies of police reports is a matter of acting the correct contacts, which our family has in great number. To make inquiries among the underworld, though..."

"We could ask Shinobu," Suzuka suggested.

"Your sister? Why would she have underworld contacts?"

Suzuka shook her head.

"She wouldn't--but Kyouya would, or his father."

"Oh, yeah, that's right."

While for Suzuka and Arisa the Takamachi family was best known for Nanoha, the clan itself was descended from medieval ninja and in recent generations had used the skills handed down in the family as bodyguards. Nanoha's father had retired after nearly losing his life in one such incident, but Kyouya had taken up the sword during high school and college. Suzuka thought that was nice, because it made him a better match for Shinobu, as a marriage where the partners were of widely differing supernatural abilities could become very uncomfortable in a hurry. Now, though, she wasn't thinking of her brother-in-law's career in a family sense, but because he had extensive contacts on the shady side of the business.

"I'm afraid that Mistress Shinobu and her husband are currently on vacation in Europe," Noel reminded Suzuka.

"Oh. That was this week they were leaving, wasn't it?"

Noel nodded.

"I am sure that they would be more than willing to help, under the circumstances."

"No, I wouldn't feel right dragging them into this unless it was absolutely necessary," Suzuka decided. She didn't want to disturb her sister's happiness for her own problems. A small, guilty part of herself also prodded at her, making her want to keep what she'd done to Arisa from Shinobu for as long as possible.

"How about Miyuki?" Arisa asked, then immediately corrected herself. "No, she isn't involved with the practical side of things as much as she is with mastering her swordsmanship and preserving the family's martial traditions. And there's no way we could ask Mr. Takamachi, or else Nanoha's mom will save the bad guys the trouble of killing us for dragging her husband anywhere near that life again."

"We'll leave the option of contacting Mistress Shinobu open for now," Noel decided. "Are there any other options?"

"Did the kidnappers say anything to you or each other while they had you in the van?" Arisa asked Suzuka.

"I'm sorry; I don't remember anything. The drug they gave me hurt so much, and I wasn't really in my right mind. I wouldn't have understood anything they said."

Arisa's face curved into an ugly scowl.

"Bastards," she spat out. The orange glow Suzuka had noticed at lunch came back. It really did look like flames licking up and down Arisa's limbs, swirling across her body, though since the chair didn't catch alight it wasn't a literal fire. This time, she noticed it on her own, holding up her hands and looking at the flames that played over them, apparently without hurting Arisa either. After a few moments, the flames died out.

"I've got to figure out what I can do with that," Arisa decided. "But anyway--" She snapped her fingers suddenly. "Oh, hey, wait a minuteཀ Noel, you said that the police don't know anything about the kidnapping, right?"

"That's right."

"But they ought to know something. There was a witnessཀ The kidnappers were waiting, but there was also another car. That guy must have seen what happened, so why didn't he call the cops? Even if he didn't want to get involved he could report it anonymously."

"Do you think that he was one of the kidnappers?"

"That's the only thing I can think of, some kind of lookout or something."

"Can you remember anything about him or the car?"

"A Nissan sedan, cream-colored. I'm sorry; I don't know the model."

"I know the license plate number," Suzuka interjected softly.

"You do? That's great!" Arisa said.

"I just happened to see it when we were walking out to your bike. I think it might have fixed in my memory because of the shock." She gave Noel the plate number.

"I'll check on it right away, Miss Suzuka."

"I suppose that it might just be a stolen car."

"I don't know about that," Arisa countered. "The van, maybe, but if the guy in the Nissan was there just as a lookout or as a boss keeping an eye out, he wouldn't want to draw attention to himself by risking having the police pull him over, not when he wasn't planning on doing anything illegal himself."

"Oh. That's good thinking, Arisa."

"Well, it's only good if Noel can really trace the car and the owner doesn't turn out to be some guy who was scared to get involved or was just a selfish jerk who didn't care."

"At the least," Noel observed, "we would be foolish not to check it out. It is our only possible link to an enemy that worries me greatly."

Suzuka looked at the maid in surprise. Little truly scared Noel; she was a very pragmatic and realistic person. If she was worried, there would be a significant reason for it.

"Then you don't believe those were just ordinary kidnappers, greedy criminals looking to kidnap me for ransom?"

Noel shook her head.

"No, I do not, Miss Suzuka. It is why I have raised no objections to Miss Arisa's plans to pursue the criminals. I believe that it will prove necessary in any case."

"It's the drug, isn't it, Noel?" Arisa said. "Darn it, I should have realized how important that was. Most drugs and poisons don't work on vampires, or wear off right away, like the time Genji Himura spiked the punch at that dance in second-year junior high and Suzuka didn't even notice. Those guys had something that worked. And if they knew what she is and took the time and trouble to prepare--" Arisa turned to her, a suddenly nervous look on her face, but it was Noel who finished what she was saying.

"Then we can assume that they will not give up on their purpose just because of one failure, and will inevitably try again."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

**Arisa & Friends Omake Roadshow!**

"Hey, Arisa-chan, what are you planning to do after college?" Nanoha asked as they walked along.

Arisa shrugged.

"I'm not exactly sure. I know that eventually I'm supposed to take over for Dad as chairman of the Nomura-Bannings Industrial Technologies Group, so he'll probably have me work through a variety of positions in the _keiretsu_ in order to get me used to our corporate culture as well as accustomed to management responsibility. Unless we get into a huge fight and I run off to be a nun or a starving artist or something, but I can't really see that happening."

"That reminds me; I thought you came to Japan when your dad's company bought out Nomura Industries."

"Uh-huh."

"So why is their name first?"

"Advertising, mostly. Nomura was a big multinational before Bannings swallowed it; their holdings are about a third of the _keiretsu_ even now, and they had a big presence and consumer base here in Japan. Putting their name first helps to reassure the public that the 'ugly Americans' haven't come in and turned the Japanese corporate structure on its head."

"I see."

On Nanoha's other side, Hayate burst out laughing.

"That can't be too good for the salarymen, though."

"Why? We certainly aren't any harsher than any other major corporation is on our workers. Probably less, when you factor it all in."

"Maybe now, but what about when you take over? I can just see some office manager saying to his staff, 'Our CEO is dead and she's still putting in a full day's work, and you're complaining about a couple of hours' overtime?'"


	6. Chapter 6

It was decided that whenever she was outside the Tsukimura estate, Suzuka was not to be left alone. Noel or Falin would escort her to and from school, where Arisa would be by her side. Arisa would have chafed under restrictions like that, but Suzuka merely nodded and accepted the others' concern sensibly.

_I've always kind of admired that_, Arisa admitted to herself, though it would have required hot irons and wild horses to get it out of her out loud. She was an honest person at heart, though, and really didn't like the way she always to seemed to have to fight back against things that weren't her own idea. This whole "ghost" thing, for example, was tailor-made for a truly epic rant. Only when she'd come back to awareness after what she only hazily remembered as an interval of gray sleep, she'd seen Suzuka kneeling there, that damned sword in her hand, about to...And because of _her_. All other thoughts had been completely driven out; there would be no complaints, no petulant whining. There was no time for her to be a spoiled brat.

"So in the meantime I will find out what I can from our police contacts about that car, and we'll see what we can do," Noel summed up. "Is that all?"

"I believe so," Suzuka said.

"Actually, there's one other thing, but...um, it's kind of personal."

"Arisa?"

Arisa twisted her fingers in her skirt.

"Well, it's about my--" She stopped and took a deep breath. It was odd, because she didn't actually breathe in air, but the gesture helped her relax and get a hold of herself like it had at lunch. "My...body," she got out. Suzuka flinched at the mention of it. _Way to go, Arisa_, the ghost castigated herself. _Can't you be a _little _stronger?_ "It's still here, right?"

"That's right," Noel answered.

"Well, I was wondering what you were going to do with it? It feels kind of weird knowing that it's just lying around your house."

Noel frowned.

"I honestly hadn't considered it. When I brought it here, I was concerned only with Miss Suzuka's well-being. I'd intended to stage something to explain the death in mundane terms--a motorcycle crash and fire, perhaps--but Miss Suzuka would not hear of it. And now, since you're continuing the pose of being alive in the world's eye, disposal becomes a problem."

Arisa winced at "disposal."

"Isn't there any way she can be properly buried?" Suzuka asked.

"No reputable funeral home or cemetery would accept a body without the proper paperwork. No doubt the underworld has practiced methods for making a body vanish, but we don't have those contacts. Practically speaking, the thing to do would be to simply bury it on this estate at night, out of sight of witnesses. Falin and I could manage it easily enough."

Arisa sighed, cupping her chin in the heels of her hands.

"That's kind of depressing. An unmarked grave in unconsecrated ground."

Suzuka sniffled.

"Hey, hey, none of that!"

"Arisa!"

In the next instant, the violet-haired girl had leapt from her seat, flung her arms around Arisa's neck, and was sobbing against her shoulder. Arisa looked helplessly at Noel, then hesitantly put her own arms around Suzuka.

_Hesitantly? Why did I hesitate?_ She'd hugged her friend hundreds of times over the years. So what was different? Did the sudden outburst make her nervous, threatening to shatter the veneer of calm that she'd surrounded herself with? Did she feel, somewhere, some genuine resentment towards Suzuka for what she'd done? _That's an ugly thought._ It made Arisa want to scream and yank her hair; she was _so_ not good at introspection, at patiently examining her own feelings and seeing where they came out. She preferred doing stuff; what did she have a subconscious mind for, if not to chew over these emotional issues in the back of her head so she could get on with her life without them bugging her?

She sighed deeply, cradling the weeping vampire against herself. It was all so much, trying to cope with her own death, Suzuka's guilt, and a bunch of unknown bad guys up to God knew what. _Can't the problems just take a number and come at us one at a time?_

"Shh, it's okay, Suzuka, really," she murmured, gently stroking the other girl's hair. It took nearly ten minutes, but the sobbing finally slowed and came to a stop. Suzuka lifted her face, her eyes red-rimmed and puffy. "You know, it's a good thing you don't cry tears of blood like some vampires in books do. That would be a real mess!"

"Arisa..."

"No, no, no, no! No more with the crying, Suzuka, do you hear me? This has got to stop now. Between those assholes who tried to kidnap you and probably will try again and me trying to get my legs under me because of this whole undead thing, we do not need you breaking down and crying over things that are Not! Your! Fault! Do you hear me?"

Suzuka sniffed.

"Y-yes, Arisa."

"Good, because I hate vampire angst. It's dorky, it's a cliche, and you'll embarrass your family falling into that tired routine."

Then, as if the humor had shocked her out of the intimacy of the exchange of emotional outpourings, Arisa was suddenly aware that she was still holding Suzuka, cradling her against herself. It hadn't really seemed to matter when Arisa was trying to comfort her or when she was snapping back at her, but now she _noticed_ it in a way that she hadn't before, the weight of her, the pressure of her softness against Arisa's body.

Oh, _damn_.

Now she knew why she'd hesitated to put her arms around Suzuka.

Why she'd done that bit with the handkerchief at lunch.

Even why she'd felt so upset about going off to a different university.

She'd fallen in love with her best friend.

She'd loved Suzuka since they were children, of course. They'd always been that kind of friend, not just people who hung out together or happened to be interested in the same things, but _real_ friends, the kind who'd drop everything to go help the other out at a moment's notice. Of course she loved Suzuka.

This was different. More than that. A desire for an intimacy between them, a closeness that was a sharing of their innermost selves. And, yes, for a physical intimacy, too; those feelings couldn't be overlooked either.

And all it had taken was Suzuka killing her to get Arisa to realize it.

She glanced over at the maid's chair and realized that Noel had slipped out of the room sometime during Suzuka's storm of tears. Was it so as not to embarrass her mistress, or was it because she was uncannily perceptive in these situations? Arisa found the idea that a third party might have recognized her feelings before she did a little bit creepy.

Even so...

_She loved Suzuka._

So now what?

Was this the perfect time to confess her feelings because their emotional defenses were down and they were being open and honest with each other? Or was it the worst possible time because of the strain Suzuka was under? Did Suzuka love her back? _Could_ Suzuka love her back? It wasn't like they'd sat around having extensive discussions of each other's sexuality.

"Arisa...?"

She was talking.

"Arisa, are you all right? You've just been staring at me for the longest time."

_I have, haven't I? _The realization of her feelings had hit her like a thunderbolt, leaving her stunned as her mind chewed it over, trying to make some sense of it at all. _Which is stupid, if you think about it._ It wasn't like Arisa was any good at that. Not that she wasn't self-aware or anything like that, just that she didn't generally spend time doing a point-by-point analysis of the whys and wherefores of her emotions. Wasn't that why she was upset with Suzuka, for overthinking the problem until misplaced guilt kept trying to turn into depression? Because the answers weren't inside her own head but with Arisa, so why waste time in the wrong place?

_Screw it_.

She was still holding the other girl, one arm cradled around her back, the other against the back of her head. Arisa slid the latter hand around until it cupped her cheek, and then in one swift, decisive movement she closed the few inches separating their faces and kissed her.

Suzuka's lips were soft and warm, and Arisa brushed her mouth against them tenderly, but firmly enough that there could be no doubt about its meaning, not a playful peck but a lover's--a would-be lover's--invitation. Her lips moved gently on Suzuka's in a tender caress.

Only Suzuka didn't respond. And when after twenty seconds or so Arisa opened her eyes, she found Suzuka's wide and staring.

_Damn._

She broke the kiss, pulling back. There wasn't much point in going forward with it, after all.

"Damn," she said again, aloud this time, as she leaned her head against the high back of the chair and closed her eyes. She sighed heavily, letting out her frustration. That was the down side, after all, to following her feelings and acting upon her heart. Things didn't always go right. There was a reason, after all, why some people were timid and feared to act. Trying and failing--well, it hurt.

Sometimes, it hurt a lot.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I guess I should have asked if you wanted this, huh?" She dropped her arms to the chair's, realizing that just maybe Suzuka wouldn't want to be held by someone who'd been pushing unwanted attentions on her. "You don't need to worry; I'll keep my lips to myself from now on."

"Arisa...why did you do that?" Suzuka asked in a very small voice.

A flicker of instinct told her to brush Suzuka's worries away with one of her usual blustery excuses. Just because she tended to act on her feelings didn't mean Arisa was very good at opening herself up and talking about them, let alone to another person. Particularly the softer emotions like love or caring. Especially not to the object of those feelings, who'd just shot her down.

But she did it anyway, maybe because Suzuka had been her friend for so long, or because Arisa figured that when you try to kiss a girl in her own parlor you at least owe her the truth, or maybe just because their lives were so screwed up at that point that there was no room for evasions or lies to fit in with all the other stuff.

"Because I love you," she said. "Not in a best-friends or a nearly-a-sister way. Even if my timing is lousy and I'm so slow it took me twelve years and dying to realize it." She opened her eyes. "I love you. I really, truly love you, Suzuka Tsukimura."

Arisa didn't know whether she wanted to smile or cry or laugh or what-the-hell; her heart felt like it had been caught in a vice-grip.

"Arisa..."

Suzuka's face was blank, as if shock had wiped it clean. There was no way to tell what she was thinking.

"How long..." Her voice trailed off, unable to finish articulating the question.

"Have I loved you?" Arisa finished for her.

Suzuka nodded, as if even a simple 'yes' was beyond her.

"I'm honestly not sure. I only realized it just now, but I'm sure it's something I've felt for years. You've always been by my side, the person I can always count on and believe in. These past few months...the idea of not having you with me, it leaves this hollow space in my chest. I thought about giving up on going to Todai about a thousand times, you know."

The other girl's eyes widened in surprise.

"I know, it's cliched beyond all reason," Arisa continued, "but I really, really didn't want to be away from you, and honestly, I can't imagine what a degree from a prestigious university could possibly give me to justify the pain. If I'd had the sense to realize what I felt and asked you out years ago, I wouldn't have even thought of it." She paused, then added, "Unless you'd turned me down flat, of course. But even if you can't or just don't care for me in _that way_, I hope you won't hate me for this..."

Suzuka continued to stare wide-eyed at her.

"Um, Suzuka, would you say something? It's getting a little creepy..." Arisa stammered. Had her friend gone into some kind of weird fugue state from the shock of yet another emotional weight crashing in on her?

"Arisa!"

It was a whimpering, choked cry that burst from her like a living thing beyond her conscious control.

"S-Suzuka?"

And then the violet-haired girl's mouth was on hers. It wasn't a tender kiss, soft and loving like Arisa's had been. It was hot and fierce, a ruthless claiming of Arisa's lips, Arisa's mouth, Arisa's whole being. Suzuka's mouth moved wetly on her own, pressing it open to admit a seeking tongue that probed, caressed, and captured. Suzuka's hands on her shoulders pinned her back against the chair, and Arisa--still not understanding anything of Suzuka's reaction--gave herself over to the other girl's maddeningly sensual assault.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

**Arisa & Friends Omake Roadshow!**

"Aw, who's a good kitty?" Arisa cooed, stroking the nine-year-old tiger-striped cat she was cradling in her arms. He purred happily, snuggling close.

"Wow, I thought that animals got nervous and scared around ghosts," Nanoha said.

"Yeah, I'm glad that part of the stories wasn't true," Arisa agreed.

"Actually," Suzuka said, "I think the cats like her better now."

"Maybe it's because the scent of her dogs doesn't cling to her any more?" Fate suggested. "Scent is just chemicals, and they would pass right through Arisa's body whenever she goes intangible."

Suddenly, the cat gave a yowl, squirmed wildly in Arisa's arms, and lashed out with a paw.

"Ow!" Fate yelped. "He scratched me!"

"Now, Ein," Suzuka scolded, "I thought we agreed that you weren't going to hold on to that old grudge any more."


	7. Chapter 7

Neon lights splashed wildly across the faces and bodies of the club-goers, striping their already garishly-clad forms with an even more crazy-quilt pattern. Uminari City was not Tokyo and this was not Ginza, but there was the same frantic atmosphere, the same desperate energy, the same thousands of hollow-souled revelers desperately seeking pleasure and finding only sensation.

Tengu moved through the herd with the lithe grace of a predator. It was not his nature to be such, he knew. This animal was not designed to stalk, to hunt, to kill. Yet now such things fit him like a second skin, as natural and right as patience and opportunism. Was it something that his master had given him along with everything else? Or was it, instead, some twist in his own spirit that had gone unneeded and therefore unnoticed until he had met the master?

He wondered what it was that these people lacked that drove them so desperately: the punks in their outlandish clothes and body piercings so different than the mass of Japanese society, the drug addict with a wild look as her last fix wore off, the forty-year-old salaryman unmistakable for what he was despite the ripped jeans and leather jacket, the hungry-eyed girl in school uniform advertising a youth that her soul had long since abandoned. To Tengu, who had a place and a purpose, the chaos in the hearts around him was as alien and inexplicable as magic.

He was relieved when he reached his goal, so he could get away from the disturbing thoughts the city raised. Pink and blue letters over a narrow door spelled out in incomprehensible English, "Smile's Kiss Love." Tengu went inside and found himself in a single-room bar, long, narrow, and thanks to some vagary of local architecture, L-shaped. The decor was a schizophrenic mix of black marble like some sleek corporate hotel and woven cane like a kitschy Polynesian restaurant. _Enka_ music blared from speakers, largely ignored by the sullen, silent drinkers.

There were no wild celebrants here, few party-goers. Those that entered in search of excitement most often left at once. And yet more genuine thrills took place here than in the rest of the district combined on most nights. The bar did not exist to sell drinks; it was a meeting place, neutral ground for Uminari City's underworld.

The underworld fascinated Tengu. It reminded him more than any other human institution of his natural environment. Predators and prey. Scavengers--oh, so many of them, opportunistic and ready to strike, profiting from another's work. He knew the dance well. Money was just a slightly different way to measure success and failure but was the same thing in the end: another day's life and a full belly.

The man he'd come to see was about halfway down the base of the L, the part around the corner from the door. He sat at the bar, drinking Suntory Scotch in short glasses like a salaryman at a corporate party, out of duty rather than any real pleasure. To Tora, "tiger," the whiskey was the price for occupying the barstool, nothing more.

"Tora."

"Tengu. Sit. Drink."

Tora flicked his fingers at the bartender, who set down another glass in front of the newcomer. Tora picked up the bottle and poured a drink. Tengu downed it in one shot, suppressing a wince at the taste. He hated liquor, but the little rituals of hospitality were important. He sat down.

"I'm hiring for a job."

"The way I hear it, things didn't turn out so well for the last people you hired."

Tengu nodded.

"That's why I'm hiring. My ma--" He cut himself off, then cleared his throat to try and cover the slip. "My employer doesn't like when a bunch of second-raters foul things up."

"I see."

No, he didn't, but close enough. Death was always there, lurking under the surface, in every underworld relationship. That was the way it should be, Tengu considered. That the majority of humans lived their lives with no more than a casual perception that death even existed amazed him.

"So it's the same job," Tora mused.

"The same objective. Different tactics," Tengu corrected.

"Wise. Whatever it is you're doing, security will be tighter now." Tora took a drink, then fished out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from his inside jacket pocket. He tapped out an unfiltered Camel, balanced it between his lips, and flicked open the gold Zippo, lighting the cigarette's tip slowly and methodically before taking a couple of experimental puffs and putting the lighter away. "So what do you need?"

"Specialists."

"In?"

"Intrusion and extraction." Or in other words, _break in and kidnap_. If the target had been an object, he'd have said "retrieval" instead of "extraction." Tengu had to suppress a chuckle at the coded language they employed.

Tora nodded.

"I can set that up."

"There's something else."

"Oh?"

He took another puff on his Camel.

"The job could get...creative. I need someone who is...open-minded," Tengu replied. For the first time, Tora showed a flash of interest from beneath his heavy-lidded eyes.

"Open-minded how?"

"The kind of person who won't be caught off-guard if the job turns out to be a bit unusual."

"Unusual as in--?"

_The target is a vampire_. Tengu was certain that was how the first attempt had gone wrong. His master had provided him with a drug that would subdue the girl, by which Tengu had hoped to keep her precise nature a secret. No doubt somehow, without that knowledge, things had gone wrong. This time he wasn't going in unprepared, which meant that he needed to have associates capable of accepting the paranormal as real.

He considered, then rejected several euphemisms. If he said something like "open to extreme possibilities" Tora would probably expect that he referred to how the target would be treated--torture, rape, or similar brutality that more "professional" criminals didn't want to dirty their hands with.

Euphemisms, he decided, weren't going to cut it.

"Supernatural," he said flatly.

Tora looked at him for a long time, perhaps trying to judge if he was serious. At last he took the cigarette out of his mouth and ground it out in a black plastic ashtray.

"This is on the level?"

"According to my employer," Tengu answered. "I don't argue with him on those points."

Tora let out a sharp sigh.

"Okay."

He reached for the bottle and refilled his glass.

"Okay," he repeated. "I can do that."

His hand shook as he drank, sprinkling droplets of Scotch on the marble surface of the bar.

"But I'm warning you, Tengu, if this is a joke, you're not going to like the punchline."

"Is that a threat?" Tengu let a little hostility creep into his voice.

"No. Or at least," Tora amended, "I won't be the one threatening. Odds are, I'll be just as dead as you'll be."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

It was weird, Arisa thought. She ought to be cold, feeling the room's cool air on heated skin. Only she didn't really feel temperature in the same way any more, and she was fairly sure that her body didn't grow hot or cold, either. It was strange. And she'd kind of liked to have felt those sensations, not quite uncomfortable, more like reminders that she'd done something special and important that had left a lasting effect.

Of course, it wasn't all bad. The sofa in the parlor was really no more than a settee, and her neck, back, and legs would have been bruised if they had ordinary muscles and nerves instead of ectoplasm or whatever it was. Arisa wasn't completely sure how they'd gotten there from the chair. She supposed it had seemed like a good idea at the time. She was kind of jammed up into the corner, not quite laying down but not quite sitting up. Suzuka was sprawled across her, head pillowed on Arisa's stomach, one leg dangling over the side of the love-seat onto the floor. Her hair tickled the skin of Arisa's belly, the undersides of her breasts. Her eyes were closed, and every time she exhaled Arisa felt the warmth of her breath.

Like this, Suzuka was much more the Suzuka she knew. Sweet, gentle, and composed, a real lady. Not the...Arisa could only call her _ravenous_...Suzuka of the past half-hour. The Suzuka who'd devoured her mouth with passionate yearning. The Suzuka who'd left the shredded tatters of her own clothing strewn on the floor. The Suzuka who'd hungrily gone after her with such abandon that Arisa would probably have had to slap her or go intangible to make her stop, if she'd wanted her to stop. The Suzuka whose hands and mouth had seemingly been everywhere at once, as if she'd wanted to absorb Arisa's entire being. Who'd buried her teeth in Arisa's neck, muffling her own cries as Arisa had screamed out her ecstasy.

Because, of course, there was no getting around it.

_I just had sex with my best friend._

Though "best friend" didn't seem to be the right description any more. Not after confessing her love to said "friend." Not after said "friend" had responded by kissing her senseless and all but ravishing her in what wasn't (though she now wished it was) Arisa's first time but what she strongly suspected was Suzuka's. No, they definitely weren't "friends" any more.

Arisa smiled. "Lovers," then. She really liked the sound of that. She wondered how long Suzuka had felt this way. From her reaction, it had definitely been a while. Clearly she'd understood her feelings a lot sooner than Arisa had. _Too bad I was such a slowpoke. We could have been dating for years!_

As good as it had felt, and as nice as it was now to be curled up beneath Suzuka, the longer it went on the more uncomfortable it got. Not because of the girl herself or Arisa's feelings, but because she became increasingly aware of where they were: not in a bedroom or other private place, but lying out in the open in one of the mansion's public rooms. The size of the room, the beauty of the furnishings on display, they all reminded her that Noel or Falin might walk in at any minute.

Arisa sighed. _No, it's worse than that. With their hearing, they know exactly what happened in here and the reason they haven't come in yet is out of respect for Suzuka's privacy._ Which meant that there was nothing to do but brazen it out. That wasn't so easy. She wasn't ashamed of what they'd done, but it was still embarrassing to talk about.

She sighed again, and this time the motion caused Suzuka to stir. The vampire girl blinked a couple of times and opened her eyes slightly. It was just a side effect of her sleepiness, Arisa knew, but the drooping eyelids made Suzuka's gaze look sultry and seductive. _Do lovers notice stuff like that about each other more often?_

"Arisa..."

She stroked Suzuka's hair and smiled at her.

"Hey," Arisa purred.

Suzuka stirred, then seemed to come to full realization and memory in an instant. She snapped bolt upright into a kneeling position, arms fluttering to cover herself while she blushed bright red.

"Oh, Arisa, I'm--"

"If you apologize, I'm never speaking to you again. No, worse, I'll tell Hayate everything with a complete play-by-play commentary!"

The blush flowed down Suzuka's neck and chest at that sally, but she also giggled. Arisa sat up and wrapped her arms around her no-longer-friend.

"Much better. Because the only thing I'm sorry about is I wasn't bright enough to ask you to do this three or four years ago."

"I'd have wanted to," Suzuka confessed shyly. "I've been in love with you since I was a little girl. Even when I didn't understand about adult things and just had childish dreams of what love and marriage meant, I always imagined you as the prince who awoke me with a kiss or the swashbuckling hero who swung in to the rescue just as the evil baron was going to force me to marry him."

"I'd be more flattered if I wasn't always the guy in those dreams..." Arisa murmured.

"I guess it's just that you always seemed so strong and brave. I couldn't imagine you waiting around to be rescued by someone else."

"Well, okay, if you put it like that you're forgiven." She kissed the nape of Suzuka's neck and felt her tremble. "But you didn't say anything all these years?"

"Well, when we were little kids, you had the biggest crush on Nanoha-chan."

"Did not!"

"You did so!" Suzuka laughed. "You followed her everywhere with your eyes, you wanted to do whatever she was doing, and you were _so_ jealous of Fate-chan for the longest time since she could share all of Nanoha-chan's life and not just the non-magical parts. That's how I knew you were over it, when you stopped treating Fate-chan that way."

"Well, why didn't you say something then?"

"Because we were in junior high and you'd discovered boys."

"Oh."

"Actually," Suzuka said wistfully, "I'd thought that was what happened. You'd stopped being in love with Nanoha-chan because you'd grown up and started imagining your love interests doing..."

"What we just did?"

"Y-yes," Suzuka stammered, blushing. "So the kind of love you felt for a close friend wasn't enough any more."

"I see."

"So I thought, why burden you with feelings that couldn't go anywhere? They'd just get between us and ruin our friendship. This way, we could stay together. Someday, eventually, life would make us drift apart anyway and I'd probably find someone else in time."

"I hope the 'find someone else' part of that plan is on hold now?" Arisa teased, and punctuated her sentence by nibbling on Suzuka's ear.

"Of course!"

"So if you'd known I was bi, you'd have confessed?"

"Yes! Well...maybe. I'm not totally sure. I mean, just because you can like women in that way wouldn't guarantee you would love or even desire _me_ particularly. I don't have your confidence, Arisa, so I might not have spoken up even then."

"Well, then, I'm glad I finally wised up and said something."

"So am I. I love you, Arisa."

"I love you, too. Um...did you want me to slip up to your room and get you some clothes or a robe or something?"

"Thank you. But..." Arisa could see the pale pink roses forming in her lover's cheeks again. "Maybe...not just yet?"

Suzuka's hand slid down to rest on Arisa's thigh where it pressed against the outside of her hip, and it became the blonde's turn to blush.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

_A/N: Wondering how a ghost can be...intimate...with her girlfriend? Well, you're not the only one asking that question. So is Hayate, as you'll see in next Wednesday's installment of "Vivio's Happy Family Magical Theater" (chapter 25, for those who've come in late)!_

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

**Arisa & Friends Omake Roadshow!**

Arisa rubbed at the spot on her neck where Suzuka had bitten her; it stung a bit, probably because a vampire bite wasn't just about puncturing skin and sucking blood, but was also a magical "attack" in that it converted blood to energy to fuel the biter's healing, strength, and other special abilities. The pain faded quickly, though; obviously no real damage had been done. The sting reminded Arisa of its existence, though.

"Hey, Suzuka, what was all that with the neck-biting?"

"Eh?"

"I mean, I don't have any blood any more. You got it all the first time."

Suzuka flushed a pale pink.

"That's not it, Arisa. It's...it's just a reflex when we...climax, oneesama says."

"Oh, okay then." At least Suzuka had apparently enjoyed herself as much as Arisa had, which made the blonde feel good. "Um...I'm not going to find one of those body pillows with my picture covered in bite marks in your room, am I?"


	8. Chapter 8

"Good morning, _goshujin-sama_!"

Detective Takeru Kato shrugged uncomfortably as a girl young enough to be his daughter bowed low and welcomed him to the restaurant.

"May I take your coat, _goshujin-sama_?"

Kato shrugged out of his long, tan trenchcoat and handed it to the hostess, who deftly hung it up for him. His stomach fluttered and not comfortably at the vaguely sexual undertones of removing any piece of clothing in a place like this.

"Please come this way, _goshujin-sama_."

Of all the places his contact could have asked that they meet, did it have to be a damned _maid café_? Kato felt like some otaku pervert as the hostess showed him to a table. The wrought-iron furniture looked like something off of Paris's Left Bank (as least to judge by the movies Kato's wife liked) and the girls' outfits from a bad fantasy of a French maid. He supposed that it was a small relief that the cleavage wasn't any lower than most one-piece bathing suits and the skirts just long enough that the stockings-or-pantyhose question wouldn't get answered, but it still made his skin crawl. Too many years on the force had made it hard for Kato to see the innocent fantasy most of the customers did when he'd seen what some of the fetishization could lead to.

He hadn't even picked up the menu when a lavender-haired girl of around eighteen deftly set a melon Ramune and a corned beef and swiss on rye in front of him. Kato picked up the sandwich and took a bite; it was heated to exactly the right temperature and was delicious. Corned beef on rye was to his mind a justification all on its own for the West's existence; he'd tried one while on a family vacation to New York City a dozen years ago and been addicted ever since, not that it was easy to find such a thing done right in Japan on a detective's salary.

"Is everything to your liking, _goshujin-sama_?" the waitress asked, timing her question so that he finished swallowing right before it became his turn to speak.

"It's delicious."

"Extraordinary service is the motto of this café, Detective Kato," she answered.

_Oh._ He'd figured his contact had sent over the food, but apparently the girl herself was the contact.

"Well, this sandwich certainly fits the bill. I hope the tip won't get you in trouble with the manager." He took the envelope containing the information and placed it on the table; it looked like the kind used for delivering money, which was why he was afraid it'd look like he was paying her for "services" rendered outside the café.

"I don't think it will. The manager works for my sister," she added with a brilliant smile. "Is there anything else I can get for you, _goshujin-sama_?"

Kato eyed the sandwich, the rippled chips, and the Kosher dill pickle that beckoned to him from the plate.

"Yeah, actually, there is." He looked up at the girl. "Can you tell me if this place does delivery?"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Falin's eyes widened as she read the report Kato had handed to her. Whatever they'd been expecting, it wasn't this. Her sister needed to hear about this right away.

**Contact: Noel.**

**Link active.**

_"Falin, what is it?"_ Noel asked over their connection. Considering that it had been designed when cell phones and the Internet were in their infancy, the sisters' wireless communication was impressive technology, but Falin still wished that she could be chipped for direct access to the conventional wireless networks instead of having to use a phone or computer like anyone else when she wanted to do anything but talk to Noel.

_"Detective Kato traced the license plate. It belongs to the Nissan, but--I'll send you my visual memory and you can see for yourself."_

**Transmit: Visual Memory/Current Date/Time Index 12:13:46-12:15:38.**

**Task Complete.**

_"I see. I will contact Miss Suzuka immediately."_

_"Noel, do you think this means that...?"_ She couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence.

_"Under the circumstances, I doubt it, but...one cannot help but wonder."_

**Link inactive.**

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

There were six of them.

Not Japanese, Tengu thought. They did not move like Japanese. It was more than a question of martial training; their body language was clearly rooted in another culture altogether. Chinese? Korean? Vietnamese? Thai? He could not be sure. Their faces would tell him, but he did not know what their faces looked like. They wore full-face masks beneath their hoods; ovals that looked like white and black porcelain but that Tengu suspected were really some modern armored material. They were dressed identically: black slacks, soft-soled black shoes, and double-breasted, ankle-length black leather dusters. No weapons were in evidence, but they carried them. Tengu could tell.

Tengu could also tell that these men were not mages in the customary sense, but were among those who, through willpower and training, could brush against the reality of magic. His master was familiar with this type and had taught him to recognize them. They would be faster than a normal human, have better reflexes, sharper perception. At times their interactions with the world would be literally supernatural.

Very likely in regarding him these men could also see some of what _he_ was.

Good.

"You are Tengu," one of the men said.

"I am."

"We are the Hand of the Red Phoenix. Your associate Tora contacted the Clover Organization concerning our services," said another. Both of their Japanese was excellent, with only a faint accent that Tengu could not place. Sound was not his favored sense, and his effortless facility with languages did not come from knowledge.

"That is correct."

"What sort of job?"

"Kidnapping." Tengu did not fear a police sting. On the one hand it was extraordinarily unlikely that these men would be part of such a thing, and on the other the Uminari City police would be at worst an irritant to him. "A teenaged girl. She had powerful protectors and will be on guard."

"On guard?"

It was the fourth time a Hand had spoken and it had been a different one each time. Probably it was a trick to deliberately unnerve whomever they were dealing with. The tactic wasn't without merit, but pointless against someone like Tengu who was far more versed in the ways of magic than they were.

"A previous attempt failed, owing to the incompetence of those involved."

"Flawed tools are chosen by flawed workmen."

He sounded so much like Tengu's master that the dark man had to suppress a sudden flinch. He could sense the six of them withdrawing from him.

_They were going to turn him down,_ he realized. What was it, some sort of effing henchman solidarity thing? Maybe it was--because these men expected to be treated with respect, and an employer who dissed one set of employees could quickly turn on another set. Tengu's instinct to shift blame, to avoid facing the master's wrath was about to cost him dearly. His hands curled, almost into fists, but there was no point.

"I _was_ one of those involved," he corrected himself, even as the men started to drift back into the shadows of the parking garage. They stopped, remaining in place in that twilight edge. "It was my plan that went wrong. I underestimated the situation, which is why I contacted you."

"I see."

"We have to move tonight. Time is of the essence." Tengu's swallowed pride tasted like bitter gall in his throat.

He was going to make Suzuka Tsukimura pay for that.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

When lunch break came, Suzuka was surprised to find a message from Noel on her cell phone. She'd spent the morning basically floating through the day on a cloud of happiness; the fact that the girl she'd loved for years was now her girlfriend had nearly drowned out the facts that Arisa was now dead because of her, or that if Arisa achieved her vengeance on the kidnappers she might vanish, her spirit's purpose fulfilled, or that the kidnappers would likely try for Suzuka again. The phone message brought her sharply down to Earth.

"You're kind of staring at your screen there," Arisa said from over her shoulder. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah, I guess. Noel wants to talk to me privately."

"If it's got anything to do with last night, I think I'll be glad to skip the lecture." Arisa gave her a peck on the cheek. "I'll be waiting over there." She gestured towards the corner about fifteen feet or so away. Arisa wasn't going to let her out of her sight, after all. Suzuka nodded and dialed.

"Tsukimura residence."

"It's Suzuka, Noel."

"Ah, Miss Suzuka! Are you alone?"

"I told Arisa that this is a private call, so she's watching from the end of the hall."

A few other students were passing by, but for the most part the corridor they were in was out of people's way.

"Good. We traced the car you told us about; Falin received the information from the police detective about an hour ago."

"That's good, isn't it?"

"Not really...Suzuka, I'm not sure how to tell you this, but..."

How she told her was how Noel always did things, with a direct and straightforward manner, no punches pulled.

"I think that you should be careful until we can investigate further," she finished up.

The news did take her aback, like a sudden stab of ice in her heart. That didn't last, though. Within five seconds she'd gathered herself, smiling in her usual calm, self-assured way.

"No, Noel," she said. "I'm glad you're worried about me, but I'm not going to accept that it could mean what you think it might."

"Miss Suzuka, I think--"

She shook her head, which was silly as of course Noel couldn't see her.

"I'm not going to worry about that," she repeated. "I know that it isn't true, and I've wasted too much time lately being upset over things that aren't real. I'll see you after school."

She said goodbye and hung up, the beckoned to Arisa. The ghost came over quickly.

"Everything okay at home?"

"Noel and Falin checked up on where the car came from."

"Oh, hey, that's great! But why would that be private?"

"It's a company car, apparently, belonging to the Sato Institute."

"Sato Institute...hey, that's a think-tank outfit that we own." As the Bannings heiress, Arisa actually had diligently studied the holdings in her family's financial group, Nomura-Bannings Industrial Technologies. "Wait, are you saying that one of my family's companies tried to kidnap you?" Smart as she was, she made the next connection almost at once. "And because the kidnappers knew about you, Noel's afraid that _I_ was the one that told them, because the list of people who know isn't that long? And that's why the call was 'private'? Oooh, I could just punch her in her damned robot nose!"

"Eep! Arisa, you're glowing again!"

Arisa glanced down, and with obvious effort stifled the fire before anyone saw her.

"And you shouldn't be angry at Noel. She's just trying to protect me as best she can. She's looking at things logically, not emotionally. And I really doubt that she thinks it's likely that you're in on the plot; she's afraid that you accidentally let something slip and is worried what would happen if it came down to choosing between your family and me."

"Damn it, I did _not _let anything slip! Okay, maybe if someone was listening in on a phone call or checking up on our e-mails and text messages..." She trailed off, probably realizing that many parents did try to monitor their children's online activities. "What do _you_ think, anyway?" she asked.

"I _know_ that you'd never do anything to hurt me, regardless if it meant standing up to your parents or anyone else, and I'm not going to waste my time worrying about something that obviously isn't true."

"Suzuka..." The anger vanished from Arisa's face in an instant, replaced by a kind of awed surprise. Suzuka took advantage of the moment to lean in and kiss her softly. Slowly, a smug grin began to take over Arisa's expression, her usual confidence coming back at once--_because of my trust in her?_ Suzuka wondered, hoping so.

"You know, Suzuka, Noel has it backwards. This is _good_ news."

"Oh?"

"I think the people at Sato would be willing to tell who uses that car readily enough, if the chairman of the board's daughter asks, don't you?"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

**Arisa & Friends Omake Roadshow!**

"All right then. You've all got your assignments. Matsuri and Taro will re-interview the witnesses, Kato will try to trace the weapon, and Abe will look into the victim's possible _yakuza_ connections. Got it?"

"Yes, sir!"

The chief opened the door and led the investigation team back into the bull pen, then stopped in his tracks so fast that Detective-Sergeant Abe nearly crashed into his back.

"What the hell is this?" he barked, staring wide-eyed at a pretty girl in a French maid's outfit handing out take-out packages to the various cops and detectives around the squad room.

"Precinct solidarity, sir," Abe said. "We decided that if Kato was going to be embarrassed by having his lunch delivered by a maid, then the rest of us should join in for our comrade's sake."

"Or at least," Matsuri said dryly, "we did after tasting the sandwiches."


	9. Chapter 9

Some things, Arisa knew, required the personal touch. This was particularly true when she was going to request confidential corporate data. No one was going to give that out from a phone call, particularly an unverifiable one. It wasn't like she had a formal position within Nomura-Bannings other than "shareholder."

She'd have been happy to do it in mid-day, but she couldn't take Suzuka _with_ her, not if the Sato Institute really did have something to do with the kidnapping. Nor could she leave Suzuka alone at school. So she waited for Falin, then blew off her own ride and took a cab to the Institute, located on the outskirts of Uminari City.

_Mom is going to pop a blood vessel over this_, Arisa thought. She'd been lucky not to get busted for sneaking out the night before, but now it was inevitable. Suzuka had agreed to lie through her teeth, pretending that the girls were out together and that she didn't know Arisa was grounded, giving a convenient answer to the question of "where is she?" That would only work to keep the Bannings from calling out the Marines to hunt for her, though. It'd give no protection from the inevitable parental wrath. _Tough_ _for them_, she decided. _This is important._

She wasn't quite practiced in all the subtleties of being a ghost, but Arisa had definitely gotten the hand of shifting her appearance. When she walked onto the Institute's grounds, she had changed into a trim blue skirt-suit and elegant cream silk blouse, the kind of costume that would be worn by a high-ranking businesswoman.

The Institute building was a two-story, sprawling affair. Its bright white color suggested a kind of harsh, sterile atmosphere, though that might have just been because of why she was there. The combination of the concepts "research think-tank" and "kidnapping of vampire girl" made for some fairly obvious conclusions and not good ones. Irritatingly, the automatic glass doors didn't open as Arisa approached, and she had to press the handicapped-accessibility button to get them to slide apart for her. She entered, striding crisply into a lobby that was as gleaming white as the outside of the building, her heels clicking off marble tile.

_Calm and self-assured_, she told herself. _Calm and self-assured._

"Good afternoon," she said as she approached the reception desk. "I would like to speak with someone in Human Resources."

The bright young thing behind the desk smiled.

"If you're looking to apply for a job, all of our current openings as well as application forms are available on our Web site, Miss--"

"Bannings," Arisa said. "Which should tell you that I already have a job."

It was clear that the receptionist didn't process the statement at once, so Arisa pointed at the wall behind her, where the Sato Institute corporate logo was boldly displayed for the benefit of anyone who'd somehow gotten confused and thought they'd walked into a McDonald's. The small text below the institute's name, "a subsidiary of Nomura-Bannings Industrial Technologies," provided the woman with the missing link.

"Yes, miss!" she snapped to attention at once. "Do you have an appointment?"

"No, I don't, which means that the fact I'm _here_ now took a slice out of my own schedule that I wasn't expecting to have to spend." She made it clear in her tone of voice that she wasn't happy about that. "Now, with any kind of luck, all I need is ten minutes with one of your human resources staff and we can all get back to our daily lives. Can you direct me?"

"Yes, Miss Bannings! Take the second corridor to your left and H.R. will be room 113."

"Thank you."

There was only one exit from the lobby other than the front door, a chokepoint arrangement where metal detectors and X-rays could keep Institute personnel from slipping sensitive data in and out of the building. Cameras were strictly forbidden, so Arisa left her cell phone with the security guard. The receptionist's directions took her right to Human Resources, where a slim, elegant man of about forty waited for her.

"Good afternoon, Miss Bannings," he said, and extended a hand for her to shake, telling her that this man was familiar with her identity and origins. "I am Tamura, Director of Human Resources for the Sato Institute. How may I be of assistance?"

Clearly the receptionist had buzzed ahead. Arisa would have preferred a simple clerk who didn't ask questions, but this was clearly time for honey rather than vinegar.

"I appreciate your time and apologize for disrupting your day with my request, which I hope will not cause you too much difficulty."

"Not at all, Miss Bannings. We are all working towards the same goal, after all."

"Thank you, Mr. Tamura."

"Shall we come into my office?"

Arisa shook her head.

"I don't believe I need to trouble you to that degree. I was sent to retrieve a copy of a personnel file, nothing more."

"Indeed, that should not be difficult. I'm sorry that you had to trouble yourself to come down here for something that could be delivered electronically to the main office at your request."

Which was the problem with dealing with people outside the office drone pay grade. They cared about their job and its ramifications, and often had the imagination, or at least cunning, to see around the stimulus-response reaction of mindlessly completing tasks to what those tasks _meant_.

On the other hand, Arisa watched the occasional spy drama or mystery in a corporate setting. She could use Tamura's reaction for her instead of against her.

"Maybe we'd better talk in your office after all," she said, flicking a quick look at the staff at their desks. He took her into the back room, into a nicely but not luxuriously outfitted office, then offered her refreshments which she of course declined.

"You're right, Mr. Tamura. This would have been much more easily done through ordinary channels, a request properly made and logged in the system. I'm sure that you appreciate the point, just as I am sure you appreciate why my father sent me personally to pick the file up instead of sending someone from his office." _Or at least your imagination can supply something._

Apparently Tamura's imagination was up to the task.

"Certainly, Miss Bannings. I fully understand the need for such matters." _Angling for promotion when the fallout happens, are we?_ "Whose file do you need?"

"Actually, I was hoping that you'd tell me."

"Pardon?"

"The person we need to know about is the one who's been provided with one of the Institute's company cars." She gave him the make, model, and license number.

"That would be a Procurement matter rather than Human Resources, ordinarily," Tamura pointed out.

"Ordinarily," Arisa replied, "but I didn't care to be running all over the company."

"Of course not. I'm certain that I can help you." He favored her with a conspiratorial smile, then turned to his computer. "Ah, yes, here we are. That car was given to Masashi Shimizu upon his promotion to Research Specialist II three months ago."

Arisa blinked.

"Research Specialist?" she said as if she hadn't expected the answer.

"Yes. He's assigned to Dr. Mizuki's Special Projects Group."

Arisa frowned. "Special Projects" actually sounded like just about what she'd expect vampires to be filed under, but a little acting might serve to keep Tamura quiet and get more information out of him. She bit her lip and glanced aside, muttering "I wasn't expecting that" under her breath.

"Is something wrong, Miss Bannings?" Tamura took the bait.

She worried at her lip with her teeth a little longer and drummed her fingers on the chair's armrest.

"Yes," she finally said, pretending to come to a decision. "Mr. Tamura, I think I'm going to need more than I thought. Do you think that you can help me?"

"Certainly, Miss Bannings."

"All right, then. I'll take Shimizu's file as requested, but I would also like Dr. Mizuki's, and also the complete roster of those assigned to the Special Projects Group."

"Of course."

He worked quickly, and in minutes his printer began spitting out sheets of paper. Arisa tucked them away in her school bag, which doubled nicely as a briefcase.

"I'm sure that I don't need to remind you," she told him, "but I have to say it. This is an important corporate matter, and discretion is vital."

"I understand completely, Miss Bannings."

"I'm glad that you do. May I have one of your cards, Mr. Tamura? I wouldn't want to forget someone who's been so helpful."

"Thank you very much. I hope that I may be of service to you in the future." He smoothly passed over the business card. Clearly, here was a man who was angling for promotion or other considerations when the crap hit the fan for the Special Projects Group. He'd keep his mouth shut; there was no profit in working against the boss. The only real risk was if the receptionist was the kind who'd tell everyone, "OMG! Arisa Bannings barged in here and stormed the HR department!" until the wrong person heard and started to ask questions. What Tamura would do then was hard to say.

"You're welcome, and thank _you_ for all of your help."

Arisa left the Institute, feeling the whole time as if eyes were on her. Since she'd learned about the Special Projects Group, the Sato Institute felt more than ever like enemy territory, and she "breathed" a sigh of relief once she was outside the building. She'd remembered to retrieve her cell phone at the security station, and called Suzuka's home.

"Tsukimura residence."

"Hi, Falin; it's Arisa. Did Suzuka tell you what I was up to?"

"She said that you were going to the Sato Institute to find out about the man in the car."

"Yep, and I got it. Masashi Shimizu is the fellow's name. I have his entire personnel file, and that of the doctor he works under at Sato. I thought that as long as Mom and Dad are going to let me have it for staying out, then I might as well keep pushing the envelope."

"What are you planning, Arisa-chan?"

"Well, this Shimizu is supposed to be an ordinary scientist, but he's involved with shady business like kidnapping. In that position, his conscience might be bothering him. You might even call him haunted."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Research, Tengu thought. Planning. Care. He appreciated these things. At the core, he was a cautious man, whatever his master had made of him, and when he acted he wanted things to be planned out carefully.

The men of the Red Phoenix seemed to appreciate this as well.

"The Tsukimura home uses a custom security system. Triggers signal the house rather than automatically summoning a security company or the police."

"There are two members of the family, a pair of sisters, as well as two permanent staff members, maids, also sisters. The elder sister is to be considered a superior-level threat. Presume that it applies to the younger."

"This information," Tengu began, looking at the schematics, the profiles laid out on the table. "You had this ready in hours. That's far too little time for this kind of detailed intel."

All six turned their masked faces to him.

"Past operations involved this family and their associates," one said. "An active file is kept."

Tengu's master would want to know this. The Clover Organization, the international syndicate Tora had put him in touch with, was a potential competitor and not one to be taken lightly. The question had to be asked: would the Hand follow Tengu's instructions? Or did their hidden masters have a further agenda? Was it coincidence that he'd been guided to them?

Then again, he decided, _if_ the Clover Organization thought they were going to interfere with the master's plans, they were sadly mistaken.

They were not fools. It was not difficult for them to divine the nature of his thoughts.

"Do not take it the wrong way. We have no current interest in the Tsukimuras," one said. "We merely used our organization's contacts to provide data both more completely and more swiftly than could be obtained through customary sources."

Or in other words, _this is part of why you're paying our exorbitant fees._ Twenty-five million yen in advance. Twenty-five million more upon completion. It meant nothing to Tengu, of course; he was not some magpie decorating his nest with glitter, and the master cared even less for money except as how it could fuel his research.

He nodded, then quietly, calmly, returned to planning the abduction of and experimentation on a high-school girl.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

**Arisa & Friends Omake Roadshow!**

"Falin, how did the Tsukimuras end up owning a maid cafe?" Arisa asked.

"Well, actually the store started out as a New York City-style deli. The man who opened it met his wife, who was a Japanese student studying abroad, at NYU. On a visit back to her parents, he fell in love with this country and decided to move here, and he wanted to start a shop exactly like the one they'd first met at."

"That's so romantic! But I didn't think Americans went in for maid cafes."

"Well, it was just a deli then, like I said. He'd needed venture capital for his start-up and came to the Tsukimuras for a loan."

Arisa cocked an eyebrow at her.

"You guys aren't _yakuza_, are you?"

"Of course not! Noel runs a legitimate venture-capital firm!"

"That's good. We've already got ninjas making the best desserts in town. We don't need vampire gangsters to add to the silliness."

"Anyway, one day because they were short-handed, Noel asked me to help out at the store, and I was dressed in my usual outfit. We got a lot of extra business that day, so they decided to keep the food the same but change the deli's theme."

"Well, I suppose that's good for business, but it's a little sad, too," Arisa said. "I mean, since the original point was to help recapture the happy memories of the past. A maid cafe isn't very romantic."

Falin grinned.

"It is when the owner's wife wears her work costume home," she giggled. "Or did I misunderstand when Suzuka asked to borrow my uniform for your date last week?"

Arisa blushed a beet red.

"We are so not talking about this."


	10. Chapter 10

Elantra glared from the holographic communications screen.

"We aren't funding this project for our health, Morris," she declared flatly. "Your initial proposal was intriguing, but as yet we haven't seen any results."

Professor Morris fumed inwardly but managed to keep his cool on the outside. He hated it, _hated_ dealing with these _ingrates_ who couldn't appreciate what he was trying to do! It was all the same with those corporate types! Whether it was Elantra and her masters, or Mizuki and the natives of this world, they were all the same! Money! Bureaucracy! Up to the minute details like these weekly status report calls she insisted on! Couldn't they understand that science, that genius could not be _rushed?_

"I've made breakthroughs, as well as a certain tentative hypothesis concerning the methods by which the combination of excessive mana and no Linker Core development have provided for alternative magical manifestations on this world."

"Tentative? That isn't a word my employer will want to hear."

Morris choked down the sudden flare of anger once again. He wanted to reach through the screen and _choke_ her, but he couldn't, couldn't, couldn't give way no matter how _justified_ he was. Her support was vital, unless he somehow could use _this_ world's technology to--ah, but those modifications would take _months_ if they were possible at _all._ Odds were he'd already _taken_ local technology as far as it could go.

"I only need a live sample for verification experiments. I've already located a suitable one and have begun the acquisition process. I have every expectation that within a week, two at the most, I will have positive proof of my hypothesis. I will transmit my data and conclusions now, so that you can see the value of my work!"

His fingers flew over the keyboard, uploading the package he had prepared for Elantra's attention.

"Very well," she said. "We'll take this under review. If your theories are all that you say, then I'm sure that my employer will have no difficulty approving your additional funding."

She disconnected unceremoniously, leaving Morris to fume. It was so _irksome_ having to deal with these people! Still, he'd successfully navigated the gauntlet once again. Funding, support, corporate backing were _assured_! He hated, hated to give up his precious hypothesis and supporting data to them before it was _complete_, but there had been no _choice_. And once experimentation had provided proof of concept and refined hypothesis into theory--ah! It would revolutionize biomagical science! His name would be lauded with the greats! But only...only! Only if that fool Tengu could bring him Suzuka Tsukimura!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Noel K. Ehrlichkeit pulled the car to a stop, then glanced to her left where Arisa sat in the passenger seat.

"The file suggests that Shimizu lives alone," she stated. "However, this is still a block of apartments, in an upscale neighborhood. Other residents will be very likely to summon the police or private security if there is a loud disturbance."

Arisa nodded.

"Hey, we just want to talk to the guy, not fry his ass, right? Well, depending on what he has to say. How do you want to do this?"

"I suggest that we knock on his door. If he opens it to talk, I can quickly subdue him without letting him make a sound. If he doesn't answer, then you can let me in."

"All right."

They got out of the car and walked past the apartment building's small parking lot towards the door.

"What if he's not home?"

"He is," Noel said. She gestured towards the parking lot. "The car that you and Miss Suzuka described is in the parking spot which matches with Shimizu's apartment."

"Hey, sharp eyes, Noel," Arisa said. "I'm glad you thought of that." She paused, then asked, "Noel, why are you so good at this sort of thing, anyway? Police contacts, covering up deaths, that's not exactly maid stuff."

"Mistress Sakura realized that Miss Shinobu and Miss Suzuka would be very vulnerable without someone to protect them. This meant not only physically but also in terms of financial management and in the kinds of pressure that could be brought by various covert groups hostile to the Tsukimuras. She therefore worked with Shiro Takamachi to help build my artificial intelligence with the kind of knowledge that would be necessary." Falin possessed a modified set of the same functions, although this was leavened by a more emotional personality suited to her 'younger sister' role.

Arisa whistled.

"I always thought you guys were impressive, but..." Arisa grinned and chuckled. "I bet Nanoha will be proud to learn that your bodyguard/special ops functions are based on her dad."

Noel supposed that was a compliment--if her being modeled on Shiro was something that made the Takamachis proud, then she herself must be worth being proud _of_. It still seemed strange; she was what she was and that wasn't going to change either way.

They arrived at the apartment building door. It required either a key or a buzz from inside to admit someone. A security camera was openly visible, probably more as a deterrent measure than anything else.

"I've got this one," Arisa said with a grin. "Here, take my bag, then go up and pretend like you're using a key on the door."

"How will this help?"

"I'm going to walk through the door and open it for you from the inside. I don't cast a reflection in mirrors, and the infrared beam for opening automatic doors doesn't pick me up, so I'm guessing that I don't appear on camera, either."

"My eyes are cameras, functionally," Noel pointed out, "and I see you."

"I bet that's because you're a person, not just a machine." She grinned at Noel. "If not, it'll really blow some guard's mind!"

As far as getting in, it worked fine. As they approached the door, Arisa's form took on the luminescent shine that apparently indicated that she was becoming intangible. She stepped right through the glass door as Noel fished out a ring of keys from her purse and pretended to slip one into the lock. As Noel turned her hand, Arisa resumed solidity and pushed the door-release button inside; the door opened smoothly.

"There, easy as pie."

They crossed the lobby to the elevator, which thankfully did not require a key to activate. They rode to the ninth floor, then walked down the quiet, gray-carpeted hallway to 903. Arisa stood to the side, out of sight from the doorway, while Noel knocked. She heard the shuffling of feet inside, then the shaft of light from the peephole that told her someone was looking out. The bolt turned with a sharp click and the door opened.

"Masashi Shimizu?"

"Yes. What do you want?"

He looked like his personnel file suggested: nearly six feet tall, with a square build and square jaw. He'd been an athlete in college and still had the build, although at thirty-eight it was now running to a softer kind of bulk. He'd removed his jacket and tie but still wore his sweat-stained white work shirt and dark blue trousers.

"Suzuka Tsukimura," Noel said.

It was there--the flash of recognition, the involuntary reaction. He wasn't a man used to having to lie expertly, not to someone like Noel to whom the slightest movements stood out as much as the most obvious.

"There's no one by that name here," he said, but she was already moving forward, a push of her hand shoving him back into the apartment. Arisa was right behind her, closing and locking the door.

"What do you think you're doing, you stupid bitch?" he growled and swung on her, open-handed. She caught his wrist even though it was thick enough that her fingers couldn't encircle it, twisting his arm painfully while her right hand covered his mouth. Noel forced him back into the apartment and steered him into a chair.

"When I take my hand away," she told him matter-of-factly, "you are not going to scream. If you do, your neighbors _may_ hear you and _may_ do something about it, but I _will_ kill you. Blink twice if you understand me."

Shimizu blinked, then after a moment's hesitation did it again. Noel removed her hand from his mouth but kept up her tight grip on his wrist.

"I'm glad to see that you're being sensible. Perhaps we can do this in a manner suitable to reasonable professionals."

He looked over at where his wrist was trapped in her grip.

"You...you're one of the professor's freaks, aren't you?"

"I'm kind of new at this," Arisa said, "but I'm thinking that _can't_ be the way you're supposed to beg for your life. I mean, really, calling us freaks?"

"Who is this professor?"

Shimizu flinched, recognizing that he'd made a mistake, that they weren't from whomever he thought.

"Do you mean Dr. Mizuki?"

There was scorn there in his eyes, just for an instant, but it was there. Not Mizuki, then.

"Shimizu, perhaps you don't understand your position. You were involved in the attempted kidnapping of Suzuka Tsukimura. The Tsukimuras are a wealthy and important family. Do you think it's a coincidence that we're here? That you were identified so quickly?"

"I don't believe it. This is some kind of trick!"

_Interesting_, Noel thought. If he didn't believe that she was who she said, then whom _did_ he believe her to be? Some minion of the "professor"? If so, why? More appeared to be going on than she'd suspected.

"Geez, does it matter?" Arisa said. "The point is, we're here now and N--and she's going to do nasty things to you if you don't talk."

Noel nodded, both to agree with Arisa's summation and her restraint in holding back Noel's name.

"Perhaps Shimizu is a fanatical member of a political or religious group, prepared to give his life for his cause?" There was nothing in his file to suggest that; she'd mentioned it only to push him mentally towards the reaction she hoped for.

"Hey, wait, I'm not some crazy!"

"Then why are you staying quiet?"

She increased the pressure on his wrist, not enough to break bone but enough to be painful. He yelped.

"Damn it! Ah, lady, I didn't have anything to do with any kidnapping!"

"You were there. You had no family or professional reason to be at the school. You watched the kidnapping happen and you did nothing. Try again." She added a twist to her grip.

"Ow! Look, you've got it all wrong! Yeah, okay, I was there, but I didn't _do_ anything. I wasn't part of it! I was just there to watch!"

"As a lookout? To make sure the kidnappers did what your employers wanted them to do?"

"No, that's not--ahhh! Lady, you're breaking my wrist! Dr. Mizuki had hoped that this was going to happen, so he sent me to see if it really did!"

"But not to stop it? You knew a kidnapping was happening and didn't call the police?"

"We didn't want to get the company in trouble!" he yelped.

"The _company_?" flared Arisa. "What about _Suzuka_, you bastard?"

Noel wondered if revealing Arisa's identity might be valuable. If Shimizu genuinely believed that he was working on the Sato Institute's behalf and in its interest, this might carry weight. Sato was a wholly-owned subsidiary of Nomura-Bannings, and Arisa's father had in fact transferred five percent of Nomura-Bannings's outstanding shares into Arisa's name on her eighteenth birthday while retaining fifty-five percent for himself. That was a powerful weapon. In her experience, however, this would just make Shimizu more likely to panic. Its best application would likely be in the area of "what's in it for me?"--when it came time to offer the carrot.

Where it concerned people who would attempt to hurt Suzuka, Noel preferred to use the stick. Arisa, she suspected, was in full agreement.

"This isn't what we wanted!" Shimizu protested. "It's the professor! He's always doing more, trying to push the envelope! He's brilliant, but you never know what he's going to do next!"

"If that's the case, then get to the point. I want to know everything that you know about this professor, why he would want to kidnap an innocent girl, and your relationship with him. _Everything_."

He quivered, then sagged.

"All right, damn it. You...who the hell are you?"

"Just take it that you messed with the wrong girl," Arisa said. "You don't want to know the rest."

"All right, all right. Look, here's how it is. I work for the Special Projects Group. That's kind of a catchall for stuff that's kind of out there, pushing the scientific envelope, right? About six months ago, Dr. Mizuki brings in this foreigner he calls Professor Morris. It's all very hush-hush, because it's apparently all human augmentation work. Biotech, way over my head, but from what I can tell, the breakthroughs are pretty amazing. So Mizuki basically started giving him whatever he asked for. Funding, equipment, staff...you get the picture."

Noel nodded.

"The thing is, over the last couple of months, Professor Morris has gotten more and more independent. He and his people have been working on something, but their formal reports back have come less and less often. Only, his people have been pushing the line in terms of research. He's purchased human test subjects through the underworld--prostitutes, runaways, destitute foreigners, the usual markets--but now, with this kidnapping, and of a specific person..."

"If he's working independently, how did your Dr. Mizuki find out about it?"

"The research assistants are Sato Institute people. A couple of them were Mizuki's plants, to report back to him."

"Were?"

"One died three weeks ago in a car accident. I figured that it might be coincidence and might be that someone found her out. Mizuki, he's scared shitless that his pet genius is going to end up putting the company at the heart of the biggest scientific ethics scandal since the Second World War! He put me in to see if it's really happening, the kidnapping."

"You didn't follow the kidnappers?"

Shimizu's eyes went wide.

"Are you crazy? Follow a van full of crooks like I'm some TV P.I.? I don't want to end up like Kugimiya! I'm a research scientist, not some security guy! Besides, it's not like we don't know where they'd take her, anyway."

"Where?"

"Mizuki hooked Morris up with an off-the-books facility. It's basically warehouse space rented under a phony name so it wouldn't be traceable. We were going to provide him with equipment, but he said he'd arrange for his own. Whatever it was, Kugimiya reported that it was ridiculously advanced; she'd never seen anything like it. It's pretty damn obvious that Morris is getting funding from _someone_ else and he's setting _us_ up as the scapegoat."

"I want the location."

He gave it to her.

"I hope that you're telling me the truth, Mr. Shimizu. If so, you may have just saved your life. If not...I would suggest that you start running at once."

"Lady, do you think I'd--"

**Connection request: Falin.**

**Accept.**

**Link Active.**

Although Noel recorded in her audio memory the remainder of Shimizu's babbling protests, she didn't really "hear" him. Falin's message had immediately captured her processing capacity.

_"Noel, they're here! They're at the house!"_

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

**Arisa & Friends Omake Roadshow!**

"What is this, some kind of conspiracy of silence?"

Murasaki's gaze raked his photographers with the force of a sword sweep. The tabloid editor was a big, beefy man, who drove himself hard and his staff harder in pursuit of the newest, juiciest scandals.

"I have got rumors flying in from all over the place! Tips from movie theater ushers, from waiters at fancy restaurants, from people who've seen them together at nightclubs or other hangouts, even from a desk clerk at a love hotel, all saying that Arisa Bannings, heiress to the Nomura-Bannings Industrial Technologies financial group, has been openly engaging in a lesbian love affair. We put that on page one and we'll sell out the whole print run!"

He hammered his fist on the desk.

"But you...you can't get me one single picture of them! Not kissing, not holding hands, nothing! As far as I can tell, you incompetents couldn't get one shot that even has Bannings in the frame!"


	11. Chapter 11

The Tsukimura estate was quiet and still.

"Too large," stated one of the Red Phoenix. "Too vulnerable."

The fence, they knew, was wired to set off alarms if contact was made over a certain threshold of pressure. The weight of a man would be enough to trigger it. The alarm wouldn't contact the police, though, or a private security firm. The Tsukimuras preferred to keep their secrets, Tengu understood.

These men, though, were not run-of-the-mill burglars. One by one, they ascended a tree, then jumped from a limb, covering a good twenty yards in the air despite the lack of a running start. Tengu followed as they crossed the lawn like shadows, slipping silently, noiselessly through the darkness. The six of them divided, pairs going in different directions to approach the house from different angles.

The Red Phoenix were past masters at breaching security. Alarm wires were found, then severed or rewired. In one place, a windowpane was seamlessly cut out of its frame with a blade that seemed, perhaps, sharper than mere steel should have. They entered without any signal being given, any trap tripped.

They thought.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"Is there anything I can get for you, Miss Suzuka?" Falin asked. "A cup of tea, something to eat?"

Suzuka frowned, then shook her head.

"No, thank you, Falin." She set down her pen. "I'm just restless, that's all. How can I concentrate on studying when I know that Arisa and Noel are off following up a lead?"

"They'll be all right, Miss Suzuka. Noel is very skilled at this sort of thing, and I don't think that Miss Arisa _can_ be hurt now."

Suzuka smiled slightly at that.

"I suppose not. But it's hard to think about something as mundane as schoolwork when everyone is dealing with things like kidnapping and corporate intrigue. It almost doesn't seem real, somehow, if you understand what I mean, Falin? Especially with me apparently being at the center of it."

Falin nodded.

"It isn't part of ordinary life," she agreed. "It must be very difficult. But you should try to relax. Miss Arisa wouldn't want you to be worrying about her this way."

"No, I suppose not. She'd say that I was just being the cliche of the girl who sits home and frets while her man is off at the war--which is especially silly because I don't have a man at all."

"Wouldn't the principle apply regardless of gender?" Falin asked.

Suzuka's smile widened.

"Maybe, but it doesn't feel the same, somehow. Like...because we're the same sex, there aren't so many social expectations, so we can find the right balance between ourselves based on personality without having to fight so many ideas of what we _should_ be to each other?"

Falin tipped her head to one side.

"That sounds awfully well thought-out for a relationship that only started yesterday, Miss Suzuka."

Suzuka blushed.

"That's because, well, I've thought about those kind of things for quite some time now, since I've known how I felt about Arisa for so long," she confided shyly. "I've dreamed about what it would be like to be her girlfriend for years; I feel like pinching myself to see that I'm not still asleep."

"I'm glad that you're happy, Miss Suzuka," Falin said, smiling.

"Thank you, Falin." Suzuka sighed happily. "This all began so horribly, but maybe...maybe there really will be something good that comes from it at last."

"I hope so too, although--" She broke off suddenly.

"What is it?"

"I hear something."

**Security Mode: Active.**

"A window at the other end of the hall sliding open." The windows in the old house tended to creak even when opened carefully. Noel had decided to leave them that way on purpose: a skilled burglar might disarm or bypass an alarm system but with the sisters' hearing the act of opening became a viable backup, with a constantly running subroutine scanning her audio input for the sound.

"What do we do, Falin?" Suzuka asked, keeping her voice down. "Should we try to get out, or to the secure room?" There was only a slight quaver to betray her nervousness.

**Connect: Noel.**

"I'm contacting Noel."

**Link active.**

_"Noel, they're here! They're at the house!"_

_"Stay calm. How many are there?"_

_"I don't know. I just heard the window open."_

_"All right. Try to keep hidden until you have better information, then get to safety using whatever route is open. Tell me more when you can, and keep Miss Suzuka safe."_

_"I will!"_

"Stay quiet," Falin told Suzuka. "Noel and Miss Arisa know that someone is here. We need to figure out what's happening, then get you away safely."

"I understand."

Falin turned out the light so that it wouldn't show under the door and pinpoint their location. A smart attacker would have seen which lights were on from outside, of course, but matching those observations to the mansion's internal layout wasn't always easy.

She didn't hear footsteps. Was the window a false alarm? An ordinary burglar, maybe, who'd been scared off by the noise?

Or were the intruders just that silent? And therefore, that dangerous?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"Suzuka's in trouble?" Arisa exclaimed.

"We don't know that yet," Noel said, her heels clicking as she ran down the stairs. Arisa trailed along, glad that her legs wouldn't get tired or her "wind" run out. The maid's voice was infuriatingly calm and controlled from Arisa's point of view. Usually she appreciated that--a sensible voice of reason--but under the circumstances, it could be annoying.

"Well, what _do_ you know?"

"Falin just said that she believes someone is trying to break in. She'll tell me more when she knows more."

"That's it?"

"For now."

"I guess we can hope for a false alarm, but..."

She didn't need to finish the sentence to know that Noel agreed with her. That would be far too much of a coincidence to believe, a false alarm right when they were expecting the kidnappers to try something. It had to be that Professor Morris.

They could only hope that Falin did a better job of protecting Suzuka than the living Arisa had managed.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Slowly, Falin peered out around the corner, wishing as she did that the mansion had internal surveillance cameras. They'd moved cautiously out of Suzuka's room, first into the hall, then down the corridor towards the landing that led to the atrium with its grand sweep of staircase.

Suzuka was with her; she couldn't move _quite_ as quietly as Falin could, but close enough, and they considered it more likely that she'd be safer _with_ Falin entering a potential hazard area than _without_ Falin in a location the other side would be aware of.

They were wrong, but not for any of the reasons they'd anticipated.

Peering into the darkened atrium (light could only help the enemy since Falin had both low-light and thermographic vision), Falin saw the two men ascending the staircase. They were dressed in black, with long coats and wearing white full-face masks that shone eerily in her sight. Their movements were quiet and stealthy; they glided through the darkness like living shadows.

Until the lead one suddenly reeled back, off-balance as a yowl went up. He'd collided with Ein, the striped gray cat that liked the fourth step from the top as his perch and who'd been nearly invisible in the dark to normal eyes. One could consider Suzuka's cats (currently numbering eight) as an informal part of the security system.

The intruder deftly caught his balance, and then in the next instant a Japanese sword was in his hand, quick-drawn from somewhere, and slicing down towards the cat out of rage or a practical desire to prevent further noise or both. Falin watched in horror, knowing how much Suzuka loved the cats.

Suzuka herself didn't just watch.

"No!" she screamed as she bolted from cover, charging the men. Even Falin's reflexes weren't fast enough to grab her, so all she could do was follow. The masked man, though, reacted at once, somehow stopping in mid-swing and whirling to face Suzuka.

**Configure-RtArm: Sword.**

Falin's hand folded as the blade extensions slid down her arm and locked in place, putting a two-foot, double-edged blade at the end of her wrist. If they wanted to play with blades, she could match them.

The man who'd stepped on the cat slashed out at the charging vampire, but again managed to restrain himself mid-swing, probably because he'd recognized their target. The second intruder drew not a sword but a machine pistol with a barrel extension of some kind and ripped off a three-round burst, silenced. His aim was remarkable, despite the darkness and the silencer and the effect of rapid fire on his arm he put all three shots right where he wanted at a target moving at Falin's speed at an angle across his line of vision.

Not that it did him any good; the bullets penetrated her maid's uniform and her pseudoskin sheath but were stopped cold by her subdermal armor.

The lead man reversed his grip and brought the heel of his sword in towards Suzuka. She grabbed his arm before he could make contact and wrenched it down and around. Ein bolted as Suzuka nearly stepped on his tail as she shifted her footing, bringing her free hand up for a punch to the sternum. Falin could almost see the intruder read Suzuka's body language and begin a countersequence, but while he was undoubtedly _better_ than the girl she--aware of the situation and intentionally drawing on her inhuman abilities--was simply faster than he could cope with.

**Transmit Stream: Full-Sense/Realtime.**

She didn't have time to explain in language; Noel could decipher it for herself through Falin's own sensory input. Another burst of gunfire sprayed up at her, scoring twice as her left hand grabbed the balustrade and she launched herself in a spinning loop through the air that made the gunman dodge aside. Falin landed, deftly found her footing on the staircase, and swept a thrust with her sword-hand at him. He slipped the attack while drawing his own sword and she chopped the gun out of his hand, breaking his wrist.

A door at the opposite end of the landing from which Falin and Suzuka had entered was flung open and spat out two more masked men, who rushed towards the fray. A moment later, as Falin blocked the gunman's sword with her own, two more of them entered from a door near the middle of the landing.

That settled it, then; down and then out was the way to go. Suzuka seemed to have figured that as well, bodily hurling the man she was fighting at the nearer two arrivals. They dodged, and the man hit the wall hard, jarring loose a heavy, framed portrait in oils of a Tsukimura ancestor. The two lunged all but simultaneously at Suzuka, stun-guns in their hands. Knowing that those would have an effect on her--moreso if they'd upped the power level to deal with Suzuka's nature--Falin broke away from her opponent to intercept. She took a slash across the back of her left shoulder which did no more than his bullets had done, sprang past Suzuka to take one man off his feet with an extended forearm, but had the stungun blast its charge into her.

"The maid's armored!" the gunman shouted, and indeed the stungun had no effect on her as she was insulated against electricity that wasn't on the order of a lightning strike. She tried to execute an attack, but the man she'd clotheslined whipped his legs against hers from his prone position and jarred her off-balance. In that instant the intruder who'd stungunned her slapped his free hand against her side and vaulted away so that her sword-slash only tore open the front of his armored duster.

Suzuka leapt at the man on the stairs. He came up with his own stun-gun, but she was again simply too fast in a one-on-one situation, knocking his arm wide with enough force that the stun-gun went flying and then hitting him in the chest hard enough to knock him off his feet and send him tumbling down the stairs.

The man on the floor rolled away from Falin, trying to get to his feet. She turned his way rather than the other because the other two men were on that side and her priority was to keep as many of them as possible away from Suzuka.

_"Falin, get that thing off your side now!"_ Noel's communication came through. She had to reach back across her body with her standard left hand for it, which slowed her reaction. One of the intruders at the far end of the landing delayed her even more by shooting her--and he'd taken the warning to heart, switching to a clip of armor-piercing bullets that although not penetrating did begin the process of compromising her armor.

Then the mine went off.

There was only so much explosive that could be packed into a palm-sized explosive device, particularly one that would adhere to a target and included a remote detonator. The shaped charge did a great deal of damage, though, breaching Falin's armor and blasting a fist-sized chunk out of her side where her lower ribs would have been, and also taking three fingers off her left hand where she was reaching for it. Damage assessments spilled through her mind as alternate pathways were found for destroyed circuitry.

**Configure--LfArm: Sword.**

**Configure--RtArm: Hand.**

More bursts of gunfire hit her chest and face, staggering her, the combination of damage sources making her unable to properly react as the gunman's partner leapt into the air, descending towards her with a powerful diagonal cut of his sword, a shockingly inefficient maneuver from a member of an otherwise highly efficient team, which made Falin deprioritize it as a threat.

Then his katana came alight with a dull red light, an aura crackling around the blade like lightning, and the edge sheared through her neck from just below her right ear into her left collarbone, which it glanced off, its unnatural power spent. Falin's head went spinning away, bounced off the balustrade, and fell towards the atrium floor below.

_"Falin!"_ Suzuka screamed.

**Visual receptors: Disabled.**

**Primary audio receptors: Disabled.**

**Primary olfactory receptors: Disabled.**

**Gustatory receptors: Disabled.**

**Primary communications array: Disabled.**

**Link inactive.**

The man who'd decapitated Falin got the surprise of his life when her right hand fisted in his coat, holding him in place. It didn't last long, though, as she drove her sword-hand through his chest. Noel and Falin's creator had not been foolish enough to place their core functions in their heads just because that was where the human brain was located.

**Connection request: Noel.**

**Accept.**

**Link active.**

**Resume transmission.**

Using the impaled corpse for cover--she felt more than one shot hit it--she fished through his jacket and found his gun, recognized the model, flipped the fire selection switch to full-auto, and swept the weapon in an arc to cover the landing. She heard the impact of a bullet on an armored duster and centered the gun on the spot, emptying the remainder of the clip in another trigger-pull. She felt the movement of air, heard the footfalls on the carpet of the remaining man on that side, and spun into a wheel-kick that any blindfighting _sensei_ would have applauded. Falin felt her foot contact his face, felt the mask shatter under the force of a blow that could punch through a concrete wall.

In the next second, though, the last intruder standing proved that the shock of seeing a headless maid tear through his comrades did not long paralyze a disciplined mind. Armor-piercing ammunition slammed into her back as the masked man emptied a clip into her. Her armor, already compromised by the blast, gave way more than once as shots tore into her torso, more than one actually ricocheting off the inside of her chest armor to do even more damage. Her consciousness became a stream of damage reports and error messages; she wasn't even aware that he'd stepped up behind her and ripped his sword into the cavity blown by the mine to tear her body in half.

**Emergency shutd--**

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Screaming in terror, Suzuka sprinted towards the mansion's front door. First Arisa and now Falin! How many lives were going to be sacrificed for her sake? How many of those she cared about? She wanted to turn back, rush up the stairs and tear any of the masked men who still lived limb from limb, but the knowledge that Falin had given her life solely so Suzuka could escape from them kept her running.

As she reached for the front door, the heavy wooden panel was flung open, knocking her sprawling. A tall, dark-skinned man stood there, towering over her.

"I should have done this the first time," he said, raising his hand. Yellow-green energy crackled in his palm while around his feet a runic circle like those Suzuka had seen Nanoha and Fate conjure shone the same hue. "From the sky comes your destruction! Midnight Striker!"

The light exploded from his palm, and Suzuka knew no more.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

**Arisa & Friends Omake Roadshow!**

Arisa brought the Yamaha to a stop. Suzuka got down off the back of the bike, then watched her girlfriend swing a leg over the machine, admiring the way the white and red leathers hugged her body.

The restaurant they'd stopped at wasn't quite as pleasant a view. It was clearly a biker hangout: motorcycles were lined up in the parking lot, ranging from Japanese and European racing models to big American touring bikes to tricked-out "choppers" from a biker-gang movie. Inside, the place was jammed full.

"Maybe we should go someplace else?" Suzuka nervously suggested. She wasn't _that_ hungry, after all...

"Nah, we're good. Besides, it's a good three hours until we get to anywhere else that offers real food." She flashed Suzuka a grin. "Three hours with a starving vampire pressed against my back."

Suzuka giggled, then watched as Arisa walked over to a table for two that had four leatherboys jammed up at it.

"Hey, guys, mind if we sit down?"

They turned their heads sullenly, then paled and jumped to their feet.

"Hey, no problem, Bannings; we were just leaving."

Arisa held the chair for Suzuka.

"Do you know those bikers?"

"Not really, but I've got kind of a rep."

"You do?"

"Well, a lot of these guys use reckless stunts to show how brave and badass they are. Since I'm absurdly rich, if I total my ride I can be sitting on a brand new one the next day. And since I'm already dead, no matter how badly I wipe out, it won't actually hurt me." She grinned. "By now, it doesn't even count as losing face to refuse to play 'chicken' with me."


	12. Chapter 12

"Suzuka!" Arisa screamed as she rushed through the foyer into the atrium. "Suzuka!"

"She's not here, Miss Arisa," Noel said, following in her tracks. "Almost certainly, they have her."

"How do you know?" she cried, whirling around towards the maid. "She might have run away!"

"Look." Noel pointed up the stairs towards the second-floor landing. "According to Falin's data stream, at least one of the intruders was killed and three more probably so, at a minimum critically injured. There is no sign of the bodies. They had time to clean up after themselves, which implies that they succeeded. If they'd been in pursuit of Miss Suzuka, they would not have had the opportunity."

"Where's Falin, then? Why didn't she stop them?"

Noel pointed again, this time at something on the ground level. Arisa turned, then gasped in horror as she found herself staring into the blank eyes of Falin's severed head.

"Oh, God! I'm sorry, Noel; I'm so sorry. I didn't mean--" _I didn't mean to bitch about your sister not protecting Suzuka when she died trying to do just that._

"You're worried about Miss Suzuka," Noel said quietly, which was as close to an "apology accepted" as would pass between them.

"They're going to pay for this," Arisa said quietly. "Professor Morris or whomever, they're going to pay." The orange glow had lit her up again, and now it looked as if she really _was_ on fire. The flames of her anger surrounded her, and this time she didn't want to suppress them. She wanted to _use_ them, use them to burn the bastards who thought they could play with their lives like toys down to ash.

Noel was already briskly ascending the staircase. Arisa tried to will herself into the air and, a little to her surprise, it worked; she flew up to the second floor and over the balustrade. Blood spattered the carpet, but there was no sign of what had shed it other than Falin's sword-arm. The android maid lay in two pieces like an action figure that had fallen apart at the waist.

"What could have done this to you?" Arisa whispered.

"Armor-piercing bullets, a contact mine, and a magically-enhanced sword technique," Noel said. "Perhaps two," she amended, noting the way Falin had been sheared in two at the waist.

"_Magic?_"

"Not in the sense that your friends use it," Noel said, kneeling next to the torso, "but a similar principle. Perhaps the effect is not too different from what Miss Hayate's friends do in battle?"

She tore the remnants of the maid uniform off the wrecked torso, then probed around the edges of the damaged plating. She apparently didn't find the release catch she was looking for, because she started ripping the plate away manually.

"Noel, what are you doing?"

"I'm checking Falin's memory core."

"Her what?"

"Her mind, basically. Her personality and memories. If it's still intact, then--ah!"

Deftly, Noel removed an oblong unit about six inches long. On its side was a single red light, two yellow, and four green, with three more unlit lights. Arisa watched as one of the green lights went out.

"It's still intact," Noel breathed a sigh of relief. "The core has separate armor of its own, so it wasn't torn up the way the rest of the body was."

"What do the lights mean?"

"The active memory and auxiliary processor are running on an emergency backup battery, but it can't sustain her for more than fifteen minutes or so. I need to get this down to the lab and connect it to a power source or Falin really will be dead."

"Wait, but if her memory is all intact, then couldn't you just retrieve the data even if the power went out? It wouldn't corrupt, would it?" Arisa wasn't a robotics engineer, but she knew how hard it was to permanently destroy recorded data.

"No, but it wouldn't be _Falin_. Her body could be rebuilt, an AI constructed with identical personality parameters, and Falin's memories installed, but it wouldn't be Falin. It would just be someone else that happened to share her memories. A copy, but not my little sister."

"Then you'd better hurry," Arisa said, understanding a bit. She still wasn't quite sure that she fully followed how Noel was defining the concepts of life and death for an android, but she'd never thought of the maids as anything other than people just because they were artificially created. And there was nothing quite like being dead to give someone a better appreciation for the value of life. "I don't suppose that you have a spare body for her or something?"

"No; that will take time--and money--to prepare." Noel had a worried look as she stood up, glancing from Falin's core to Arisa and back again. "Miss Arisa, this...it's going to take time."

"Time? You said that Falin had less than fifteen minutes!"

"Until the core's battery power fails, yes," she said, walking swiftly towards the stairs. "But once I connect a power source, I'll then need to stabilize her with proper sensory input. She can function without a body, but she needs to be able to perceive and interact with the world. Extended sensory deprivation and isolation is as damaging to us as it would be to you."

Arisa didn't like where this was going.

"How long will it take?"

"It depends as much on Falin as it does on me. At an estimate, somewhere between two and four hours."

"_Hours--_" Arisa gasped. "But what...what about Suzuka? Those people could be doing anything to her! Some kind of twisted scientific experimentation--for all we know they don't even need her alive!"

"Don't you think I know that?" Noel rounded on her furiously. "If Falin was in my shoes and I was the one dying, there wouldn't be a question. She'd let me die and pursue a rescue, just as I'd do the same if it were Miss Shinobu in danger instead of Miss Suzuka, because that's _what we're for_, to protect our respective mistresses with everything we have. But I can't let my sister die when we don't _know_ that Miss Suzuka is in any immediate danger! I just can't!"

Arisa stared at the android's surprisingly emotion-wracked face. She'd never seen Noel like this, not once.

"_Shit!_" She slammed her face into the newel post at the base of the stairs, stunning herself when her frustrated outburst blasted _through_ the post and sent the carved finial bouncing onto the floor. "Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it! I don't want Falin to die, either! I _know_ that Suzuka wouldn't want that! But I can't stand that Suzuka is in the hands of those people, whatever it is they want from her!

"I couldn't help her when she was kidnapped the first time. They brushed me aside like I wasn't there. I _did_ help save her life by being there when she needed blood after the crash, but if I hadn't come back from the dead _she'd_ rather have been the one to die. And now I can do all these things that might actually make me useful to her, and I wasn't even _there_ when she needed me! I can't keep failing her like this!"

"Miss Arisa, you're not failing Miss Suzuka. It's not your job to--"

"Oh, yes it is. It's everyone's job to protect the people we love with everything we've got. It's one thing when you don't have a particular ability. A four-year-old can't be expected to protect her mother. A housewife doesn't go into battle to protect a soldier--and a soldier doesn't go into the boardroom to help a corporate raider wage a proxy battle. But this...I should _be_ there for her, or what was the point of coming back anyway?"

"Miss Arisa--"

"I'm going after them, Noel. Go do what you need to do to save Falin, and while you're doing that, compile everything we know about these people--everything you and Falin found out about the first kidnapping, the files I got from Sato, what we learned from Shimizu, the data Falin sent you about the fight, everything. Then send it to Nanoha, Fate, and Hayate. If you can, set it up to be released automatically to Shinobu and the Takamachis and anyone else you can think of if it all goes to heck for us, as well."

Noel nodded.

"I'll follow you when I get the chance. Even if you succeed, you may still need help. I presume that you're going to the lab facilities Sato set Professor Morris up with?"

Arisa nodded back.

"It's the only lead we have."

"If you learn anything, positive or negative, and you get a chance, call me. Whatever else happens, we can't provoke them to move Miss Suzuka somewhere else, to a location we can't track."

"I won't screw this up, Noel. Not again."

The android nodded at her.

"We're all trusting you, Arisa. Miss Suzuka most of all."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Morris rubbed his hands together eagerly as the unconscious Suzuka was wheeled into the main laboratory chamber. The room showed plain evidence of its original purpose: corrugated-metal walls, bare pipes wherever they needed to be regardless of aesthetics, fluorescent bulbs too high and too few to provide adequate illumination mandating the need for additional, free-standing lamps. Yet any scientist on Earth would have given his or her right arm for the computing power, the bio-medical scanners, and the holoscreen interfaces that Morris had installed. Indeed, never mind the equipment or the experiments, the _baseline_ knowledge in the databases that Morris was trying to extrapolate _from_ would have been valuable enough to trigger a world war over their possession. The tiniest dribs and drabs he'd provided to that fool Mizuki had left the man slavering to give Morris whatever he demanded: space, equipment, black-budgeted local funds. This had let him establish the base for his work, to prepare the ground so he could approach Elantra.

"And now," he crooned at the girl, "you'll provide me with all the information I need concerning the biological manipulation of mana without a Linker Core. You'll revolutionize the very way we _think_ about magic and about humanity! Of course, you won't be around to see the way it all breaks down, but...ahh, the name of Suzuka Tsukimura will be fully documented for history's sake, don't worry!" He giggled and looked over at Tengu. "Somehow, I don't think this will be of great comfort to her. So few understand the sacrifices that we make for science."

Morris clucked his tongue and looked over at where the two masked men stood at the fringes of the laboratory. They would have made interesting test subjects several months ago when he was just beginning to form his hypotheses concerning genetic links to extreme mana potential and the ways the natives had managed to tap it without expressing Linker Cores. Now, though, their tricks were old news.

"Go pay off your little playmates. They did their job, which is more than I can say for your last set of tools."

"Yes, Master."

The figure on the gurney stirred.

"Ah, excellent, she's coming around. While analysis of blood and cellular samples is necessary, some of my most important tests involve the reaction of the entire body as a system, and I hope to get to work right away. Ah, this is such a promising evening!"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Arf was bored.

The truth was, she missed the old days, when she was Fate Testarossa's ally and protector in battle. More had changed with Fate than just her last name, though. Through diligent training as well as physical maturation she had developed her magical skills until she'd reached the point where Arf wasn't an ally, but a burden in combat. The magic it required to empower the familiar with the ability to act could be more productively used by Fate herself.

This had not been an easy pill for Arf to swallow. Fate hadn't said a word; it had actually been Zafira who'd pointed it out, along with a speech about "the duty of a Guardian Beast to her master," yadda yadda yadda. She'd have taken it better if the big blue furball would ever get around to admitting that a familiar was a familiar regardless of what name you gave them, but dammit, he'd been right. She she'd laid it on the line with Fate, and after a good five minutes of stammering, protests, and denials, Fate's natural honesty had won out and she'd admitted the truth.

So Arf was at home, in puppy form, using the minimum level of magic. Yuuno had offered her a job as a research assistant about a week ago, and she thought she might take it. She'd never really imagined herself as the librarian type, but it would feel good to be useful again. She was way too young to be talking retirement!

She shifted back into human-child form and reached for the box of Milk-Bones. Arf loved the taste of the things; she'd nearly gotten Zafira hooked on them, too, until Vita had read the box and spoiled the joke early by busting into laughter.

"'I am not a dog, I am a wolf, and therefore I do not eat dog biscuits,'" she mimicked aloud, then burst into a fit of the giggles. Zafira was a nice boy, but_ sooooo _serious!

A beep from Fate's computer broke Arf's mood. Since she was bored, she rolled off the bed and ordered a screen open. Fate had tasked her TSAB-grade machine to interface with her "ordinary" Earth-based Internet account, and it appeared that she had e-mail over that system.

"Darn," Arf muttered, since she wasn't going to snoop through her master's private communications. Then she saw the identity of the sender, the Urgent flag, and the message header: "Suzuka and Arisa need help." That was different! Arf opened the message at once, but after only a couple of minutes realized that time was a factor and ran to the door.

"Hey, Lindy!" she yelled. "Come quick; you've got to see this, now!"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

_A/N: It might be noted that Arf helping Yuuno with his research work at the Infinity Library is yet another thing that got shoved ahead three years in this fic._

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

**Arisa & Friends Omake Roadshow!**

"Look out!" Falin squeaked as her shoe caught on a fold in the rug. She lurched forward, the tray in her hands flung outward with its steaming tureen of soup. Arisa went intangible just in time to stop from getting a minestrone bath. The rug, not being undead, wasn't so lucky. A calico kitten wandered over and started licking at the pool.

"...Sorry," Falin moaned. "I'll get that cleaned up."

"At least it's not one of the expensive carpets," Suzuka comforted her.

"Hey, Falin, there's something I've never understood about you."

"Yes, Miss Arisa?"

"Well, you're a security android, and you have a very impressive combat skill program from what I understand, from unarmed combat to hand-to-hand to ranged weapons. So how is it that you're a klutz?"

"That was blunt," Suzuka said.

"Well, it's part of my programming," Falin said. "Mistress Sakura thought that a 'clumsy little sister' for Noel would be cute, so I'm randomized to make a misstep every now and again. Oh, don't worry! When I switch over to security mode that stops; I can't do a good job protecting Miss Suzuka if I'm tripping over things. And any proposed 'clumsy' action that would result in probable injury to someone gets canceled out even in normal conditions. It's really a very complex subroutine!"

"Yeah, but Falin, I nearly got a face full of scalding hot soup!"

"That is odd." Her eyes unfocused for a second. "Oh, I see! I'm aware that you can't be injured by physical damage, so the potential-harm check doesn't acknowledge that as a foreseeable consequence. Would you like me to adjust that?"

"Please and thank you. It might raise some eyebrows at a dinner party if you knock me off a balcony and I have to explain why the fall didn't hurt."


	13. Chapter 13

Arisa descended from the sky about a block from the address they'd gotten from Shimizu. It was kind of odd. Not that long ago she'd been wistfully thinking of how her bike reminded her of how Nanoha and the others felt when flying. Now, for the first time she had done the real thing and she'd barely noticed any of it. Her destination meant everything to her, the journey nothing.

_I wonder if Nanoha feels that way on a mission_, she thought. Did her friend get so caught up in what she was doing that the amazing things she did were reduced to just routine? Or did she still manage, now and again, to feel that amazement, that sense of awe that being able to use magic should carry?

The flight had managed to do one thing, though. It had cleared Arisa's head a little from where it had been. At the mansion she'd been completely at the mercy of her emotions, caught up in fear for Suzuka's safety and anger at the people who'd hurt her and Falin. She was still afraid, still angry, but she was also under control. She knew that she'd have to stop and think before crashing in.

Arisa's _first_ thought, of course, was that she shouldn't be there at all. The smartest decision would have been to wait for Noel and whomever else she could get to help. That was the plan that was most likely to work. A failed try by Arisa not only would mean that she'd be unavailable to help with the main assault later, but also would put Morris on alert. He'd know that _they _knew where he was holding Suzuka, and he'd ready his defenses, or call in help, or--worst of all--move her to another location they _didn't_ know about. That was a long list of things that could possibly go wrong.

Even so, she had no intention of turning back.

She just _couldn't_ wait, not when those monsters had Suzuka at their mercy. The last time they'd had her, she'd ended up as a ravening monster that had killed Arisa out of pure bloodthirsty instinct--killed someone who was not only a close friend but someone she'd apparently loved for years. And that had been with only a few minutes' time, without even getting back to the lab.

Arisa wasn't willing to risk it. This Professor Morris couldn't be allowed to have his hands on Suzuka for even one second more than was possible. Arisa _had_ to try--no, she had to _succeed_. That was all there was to it.

The only question was how.

Barging in had made complete sense to her when she was angry. She was already dead, after all. What could Morris's security do, kill her again? But maybe they could, how did she know? And they absolutely could hurt Suzuka, hold her hostage to Arisa's good behavior. She had to play this smart. She didn't have floor plans, security system details, or anything like that. She'd have to enter carefully, use stealth. _Too bad I can't turn invisible like in ghost stories,_ she thought.

Then again, she _was_ invisible in one sense. Security systems weren't going to notice her. All she needed to do was avoid being seen by people. She went intangible, the cursed when her cell phone dropped through her pocket to crack off the pavement. She couldn't take it with her unless she stayed solid, which she couldn't unless she wanted to break in physically and maybe set off alarms. The fancy lock with its electronic card reader on the door said that alarms were likely.

_Fine. No phone, then._ Meaning no backup. That was how it had to be.

She thought about walking through the wall, but decided against it because she might easily wind up face-to-face with a half-dozen people. Instead, she stepped through the door and into a bare hallway with a cheap linoleum floor. Someone had done some work converting the old warehouse into workspace, but the job was a second-rate one. There was a camera at the end of the hall, eyeball-sized and -shaped, in the corner where two walls met the roof. Whomever had installed it was going for unobtrusive rather than the bulky, obvious cameras one saw on television. Arisa crept up the hall, keeping her eyes and ears open.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Kazuo Mizuhashi had been assigned to work security at the offsite lab by Dr. Mizuki, along with several other discreet and loyal members of the species "goon." He figured that the work going on there was unethical and probably illegal; he just didn't give a damn so long as he got his weekly paycheck.

So when an alert lit up on his security board, he checked it at once, then punched his intercom switch.

"Lab, this is security control. We have a situation."

"Tengu speaking."

"Mr. Tengu, I'm showing an alert on the Professor's monitor but nothing on any of the cameras. It might just be a false alarm, but protocol says I report in and--"

"Where?" Tengu cut him off.

"It just moved out of the entry hall into Corridor 2."

"Send someone to investigate and keep me informed."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Arisa had just rounded a corner when a door flew open and two dark-uniformed men stepped out. Being, apparently, semi-legitimate security officers, they weren't carrying guns but instead short, boxy devices: Tasers. _They're a few days late if they want to take me alive_ buzzed through her thoughts.

"Control, there's a teenage girl here," one of the men said into a hand radio. "Do you want us to bring her in?"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"What are you talking about?" Mizuhashi said, eyes fixed on the monitor. "That hallway's empty except for the two of you."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

She'd messed up, Arisa knew. She'd been taken off-guard at the sight of the security men and froze, while _they'd_ reported in at once. Now they knew she was here. Fear spiked in her belly. She had to move, and fast!

_I hope this works_, she thought. Her fear made it easy to summon up the flaming aura, and she thrust her hands out, _pushing_ with her mind. The fire ran down her arms and leapt from her outstretched palms, streaking down the hall in two burning projectiles that burst against the chests of the two guards, knocking them sprawling. Neither one got up; they just lay there. For a few seconds Arisa was terrified that she'd killed them, but when she checked they were still breathing, just unconscious. While their uniforms had been burnt and charred, the exposed skin was intact.

_Weird, it's like the fire knew I didn't want to kill or even seriously hurt these guys. They're just ordinary guards, not like that professor or his kidnappers._ Maybe it was like that "magic damage" Nanoha used in her fights, a supernatural force that could incapacitate an enemy instead of physically harming them.

If that was the case, Arisa wondered if the ghostly fire _could_ kill if she wanted it to.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"Mr. Tengu, two security guards are down, but I don't see what did it to them!"

Tengu scowled. Professor Morris had obviously been correct to augment the building's security with mana sensors, given the number of magical ways there were to fool cameras.

"Did the guards report anything?"

"Well...yes, sir, they said that they saw a teenaged girl, but nothing showed up on my cameras."

"There are ways to trick cameras."

"You mean like a hacker editing the feed?"

"Among others. Where is she now?"

"Corridor 4, sir."

Tengu turned to the two Hand members.

"Kill her."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The masked men that burst from a door near the far end of the hall were like something out of a nightmare. The exactly matched Noel's description of the men who'd attacked the mansion and nearly destroyed Falin. One had a gun drawn, the other a katana; the gunman fired at Arisa at once, putting bullets through her stomach, her right shoulder, and her left cheekbone. Arisa felt no pain as they pushed through her, just an eerie sensation as part of her body dissolved and reformed.

But she wasn't here to fight guards and now it was pretty obvious that stealth was out of the question. She went intangible and dove through the wall to her right, the same side where the men had come from. She didn't end up in the same room, just a bare space that could have been fitted up as an office if some renter wanted, so she went forward this time, passing through yet another wall.

_Jackpot._

Arisa came out into a large, open area, a piece of warehouse floor that hadn't been converted into offices. Maybe the construction had been stopped for lack of funds, or maybe it had been intentional, for the benefit of clients who wanted a larger floor space. It had been rigged up as a laboratory area, with tables, computers, large- and small-scale equipment. White-coated men and women moved here and there, working on various tasks that Arisa could make neither head nor tail of. Only two things made immediate sense.

One of them was the display screens used with some of the testing equipment. They floated in mid-air, being holographic rather than a physical display. The only place she'd seen something like it outside of science fiction was in Fate and Hayate's homes, where they had TSAB-origin communications and computer gear installed. The implication was significant, and should have set loose all kinds of trains of thought. Arisa, though, gave it no more than a passing glance that registered in her subconscious.

That was because the other thing she saw was Suzuka. She was lying on a wheeled metal table or gurney, with metal shackles bolted around her wrists, ankles, throat, and hips. A skeletally-thin old man with wild gray hair stood over her with some kind of odd instrument in his bony hands, and while the expression on his profile didn't exactly qualify as _lust_, it had the same kind of desperate, passionate yearning Arisa had seen when Suzuka made love to her.

She should have thought it through, made a plan, picked out an angle of attack. That's what she _should_ have done.

But of course, she didn't.

"Get away from her!" Arisa screamed while hurling fire at the objects nearest to her. A computer console exploded, causing three screens to wink out, and a table full of beakers, vials, microscopes, and other equipment was blown away. One scientist went staggering back; another couple of them screamed. Arisa definitely had everyone's attention. "Let Suzuka go right now!" she shouted, blasting another piece of Frankensteinian bric-a-brac. This one started to spit sparks and a moment later started to flame, sending curls of black smoke up towards the high ceiling.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, _no!_" screeched the thin man. "Not _now_, when I'm so _close_! Tengu, _destroy_ her!" He pointed a skeletal finger at Arisa, his hand trembling with rage and agitation.

The research staff scrambled, some running for cover, at least one going for a fire extinguisher. From among them came a raucous, harsh screech, like a crow driving a small animal away from a meal. What emerged from the milling group wasn't a crow, though, but an immensely tall man with dark skin and hair, wearing black jeans and T-shirt and heavy work boots like a street tough. Arisa didn't hesitate, but flung a bolt of fire at him. It was getting easier, becoming more natural every time she did it.

This time, though, the result was different. The bolt didn't strike home, but instead guttered away short of its target when the man raised his hand. Arisa fired another bolt at him, but it, too faded out. The man's thin lips curved into a sneer.

Then, all at once, his body changed. His light, feathery hair came loose from its ponytail and swirled up, spreading over his face. His nose and lips grew together, expanding and elongating until a glistening black, dagger-sharp beak protruded from his face. His feet burst free from his boots, and they were fork-shaped yellow talons rather than normal feet. His shirt was ripped away as great black wings erupted from his back.

_T-T-Tengu!_ Arisa's mind babbled. The crow-like mountain spirits of legend, from whom the ninja were supposed to have learned the magic of invisibility. It was impossible!

But then, "impossible" was a silly concept for a ghost trying to rescue her vampire girlfriend, wasn't it?

Taking advantage of Arisa's startled state, Tengu leapt at her, gliding across the twenty-foot gap separating them. His claw-nailed right hand fastened around her throat while the other caught her upper arm. The force of his charge carried her back, slamming Arisa up against the wall.

"Stupid little witch!" he croaked. "You won't stop my master's plans!"

His grip tightened, his claws digging forcefully into her skin. Gathering herself, Arisa went intangible, passing through the monster to reform behind him and blast him into the wall. Tengu whirled on her, his dark eyes burning with hatred. He pointed one clawed finger at her, a tiny bullet-like ball of yellow-green light forming at its tip, and then the light shot at her, sniping through her abdomen.

For the first time since her death, Arisa felt physical pain, a cold yet burning sensation as a hole was punched through her. Choking in shock, she staggered back. Slowly, much more slowly than when she'd been damaged in the past, her body reformed itself, and even afterwards the cold throb lingered. Maybe guns and claws couldn't hurt her, but this was different. _Magic_. You couldn't kill the dead by damaging a body that wasn't really there, but all kinds of ghost stories told of sorcerers and priests using magical or holy supernatural powers to drive off or dispel spirits. _Exorcism._

Now it wasn't just Suzuka that she was afraid for.

Tengu saw her fear and cackled.

"That's right, little girl. You're finished, now."

He raised his hand, a sphere of the same yellow-green hue crackling in his outthrust palm. If size was anything to judge by, this might even be the finishing blow. But there was something else, too, something that Arisa saw that changed everything.

A Midchildan magic circle beneath his feet.

Arisa knew those well. She'd first seen them at age nine, when she and Suzuka had been forcibly introduced to the world of magic. They appeared whenever Nanoha and Fate conjured powerful spells. Tengu was using magic like theirs. He wasn't a legendary monster, capable of who-knew-what. He was a known quantity, or at least a comprehensible one. A mage--or, more likely, a _familiar_, like Arf.

"Midnight Striker!"

The buster-type spell blasted out, its beam at least four feet across. It tore through the lab, obliterating some of the equipment and catching up one of the researchers in its path--but not Arisa. She'd moved before he fired, leaping into flight so that the unleashed spell shot by beneath her.

"Don't think I'll make it that easy for you!" she snapped at him, and hurled another firebolt into his face. She was still scared--who wouldn't be, in their first magical battle?--but the paralyzing terror was gone. She might be new at this, but there was no way Arisa was letting some stupid crow keep her from Suzuka without a fight!

Screeching his rage and defiance, Tengu leapt into the air after her, and the battle was joined in earnest.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

**Arisa & Friends Omake Theater!**

"Well, what do you think?" Sakura Kido said, closing the last panel.

Falin didn't answer right away.

"The diagnostics say that everything is working perfectly, Mistress Sakura," she at last concluded.

"Great! So what do you think of the upgrades I built in?"

"Well, I really appreciate the enhanced wireless connectivity, particularly since it piggybacks on the long-range net that you'd previously designed for us."

"Yep, no dead zones for you."

"But, um..." She raised her hands to her face. "Why am I wearing glasses? My vision shouldn't require correction."

Suzuka's aunt grinned.

"No, no, they're non-prescription. I only added them for the appeal factor."

Falin touched the top of her head.

"And the redesign of my primary audio sensors?"

"More efficient by 37 percent."

"Er...and this?"

A tail snaked out from beneath her.

Sakura laughed.

"Strictly for added _moe._ The way I figure it, a ninja robot _meganekko_ _catgirl_ maid will cause spontaneous combustion of otaku within a forty-foot range!"

Arisa looked at Suzuka.

"Offhand, do you happen to have any Yagamis in your family? Because it would explain an awful lot about you and your aunt both."


	14. Chapter 14

Arisa whipped fire towards the black-winged familiar as he leapt into the air to pursue her. He dodged a bolt, letting it hit the bare concrete floor below, then blocked a second one with his forearm. It looked like he was doing it with ease, though she had no idea how it was really affecting him. He snapped his wings out, coming to a stop in midair, and began conjuring a spell of his own.

"Like stars falling from the night sky," he incanted, yellow-green "bullets" of shooting magic forming around him as he did so, "descend upon my enemy. Meteor Shower!"

Six bursts of magic fired towards her. Arisa retreated and dodged in the air, but the shots arced to follow her, guided by Tengu's will. One of the shots near the edge of the cluster grazed the wall, detonating there, but the others continued to pursue her. She dove back down, turning intangible, and passed _through_ a bank of lab equipment that looked like it had come from some TV hospital show. The lead two shots crashed into the device before Tengu could react, making the others dive out and around after the fleeing ghost, zipping at her from different angles. Arisa zigged when she should have zagged as she dodged into the air and one of the shots blasted her left foot. She squealed in pain, the sudden shock making her stop moving, and the last two shots raced towards her from the front. With no time to dodge, she called up fire almost on reflex. The magical bullets crashed into her makeshift shield; Arisa's arms trembled as she felt the impact, but her defense held.

The fires started by the various destructive blasts that had gone off were starting to get beyond the staff's haphazard attempts to control them. Clouds of smoke began to rise, making Arisa glad that she didn't have to breathe.

"You can't keep this up all night," Tengu warned. His croaking voice was eerie and inhuman on account of the crow's beak he was speaking from.

"Quoth me to the raven: get stuffed," Arisa snapped back, unleashing two fist-sized fireballs at him. He blocked one and dodged the second, but she was learning fast; the second blast reversed course and swept backwards to take Tengu in the back, adding the stench of burnt feathers to the smoke.

Screeching in rage, he launched another Meteor Shower at her, but this time Arisa was ready. Instead of dodging within the room she simply flew straight backwards and passed through the roof, luring the shots into the solid object.

_Just because intangibility won't help me against his magic directly doesn't mean that I can't use it in other ways!_

She popped back into the lab and struck out at Tengu again.

"I'd think you'd be good at this," she mocked him. "Don't crows usually spend their time preying on stuff that's already dead?"

"Fucking bitch!" he howled, and unleashed a pair of crackling spheres the size of basketballs, which detonated bomb-like in midair when they neared her. Arisa got a shield up in the nick of time but even so she felt the bleed-through tear into her. She reeled in the air and he was on top of her, his right arm swinging like a thunderbolt to almost literally rip the front half of her skull off with his clawed hand. _That_ was purely physical damage, though, and so it caused no pain and inflicted no permanent harm. Arisa slammed her palms against his body and called up fire once more; he screamed as it engulfed him and he went spiraling down to the floor. The flames died out, but he looked shaky getting to his feet.

The heat and smoke, meanwhile, had apparently reached some threshold level. The sprinkler system went off, spraying a steady rain of water from over a dozen roof-mounted nozzles. It was starting to become an effort for Arisa, but she sent another firebolt down on Tengu; he blocked it but it drove him down to his knees.

"Enough, enough, _enough_!" shrilled the voice of Tengu's master, and in the next instant glowing blue shackles seized Arisa around the wrists, ankles, and waist. She tried to fade to intangibility, but even in that state the binding magic held her fast. "Finish her _off_, so we can _go!_"

Tengu rose to his feet, shaking his head to try and recover from the effects of Arisa's assault. Whatever he was going to do, she was a sitting duck for it. The crow familiar flexed his hands and rolled his neck; apparently she'd been giving him a good working over until his master had decided to butt in and save his feathered behind.

"Arisa!"

_Damn it, she's awake._

"Suzuka, look away! You don't need to watch this!"

"Arisa, no!"

Tengu raised his hand, another crackling ball of energy beginning to form in his palm. If a beak without flexible lips could be said to sneer smugly, he was somehow pulling it off.

"Arisa!"

There was a loud grating, squealing sound from the table as Suzuka literally managed to bend the frame of the gurney as she tried to wrestle free from the shackles. Tengu and the man Arisa presumed was Morris both spun towards the sound, Tengu breaking off his spell.

"Ah, must emotion always demand recalculation of a person's capabilities?" the skeletal man complained, then jolted Suzuka back with another binding spell that chained her down more firmly. "_Finish_ her, Tengu, did you not _hear_ me?" he snapped, gesturing at Arisa.

The reprieve had ended, then, Arisa realized. Suzuka's efforts had bought her only a few seconds. Tengu's sneer returned as he looked up at the bound ghost.

Oddly, though, those few seconds proved to be enough.

Fire, water, smoke, and alarm klaxons were joined by an explosive blast as the back wall was ripped open.

"Ephraim Morris and Tengu, you are under arrest for the unauthorized use of magic against the sapient natives of a non-administered world! Surrender immediately and you will be given the right to defend yourself at trial."

_"Whaaat?"_ Morris keened, staring at the figure that emerged from the smoke. Lindy Harlaown, Admiral, Time-Space Administration Bureau Navy (Ret.) strode with measured pace through the gap she'd created. She wore the blue jacket and crisply pressed white trousers of her old uniform, with dragonfly-like fairy wings of shining golden light at her back. Arisa had only known this woman as Fate's sweet and caring adoptive mother; seeing her like this made the blonde realize how it was that she had attained flag rank in the Bureau.

"No!" the professor hissed. "_No_, I will not be _stopped_! I am so close to a _breakthrough_! Tengu!"

The familiar spun away from Arisa and charged Lindy, while Morris tried to cast a binding spell to trap the Admiral. A blue-green rune sprung up around Lindy's feet, her wings buzzed, and the sky-blue coils shattered even as they tried to form around her.

"Round Shield!"

The shield spell sprang up from her upraised palm; Tengu crashed into it and bounced off. Lindy kept her hand up as streams of viridian light swirled out of the air to gather in her palm. Morris shrank back away, apparently recognizing at least some of what was about to happen.

"From the sky comes your destruction!" Tengu incanted.

"Eternity..."

"Midnight Striker!"

_"Breaker!"_

The two spells were cast all but simultaneously, blasting from the combatant's outstretched palms towards one another. It would be inaccurate to say that they clashed; Lindy's Eternity Breaker blew straight through Tengu's buster without any apparent pause, scattering its energies, and slammed into the familiar, lifting him off his feet. Arisa wasn't completely sure if it had knocked him unconscious on impact, but was fairly certain that by the time the cannon-style breaker had carried him not only through the laboratory wall but the three rooms beyond he wouldn't be getting up anytime soon.

Lindy flicked one white-gloved hand towards Arisa. A blue-green haze surrounded the magical bonds and they shattered. At once Arisa summoned up fire again while Lindy freed Suzuka.

She fired a blast through the sprinkler spray, but as it neared Morris, pale blue light surged up around him and he vanished.

"What the--? Where'd he go?"

"Short-range teleport," Lindy said. "I couldn't seal off the area with a barrier without a support team; that isn't one of my talents."

"Then the bastard's getting _away_?" she swore, descending to land next to Suzuka.

"Only for the moment; we have his familiar and can track him through the link between them. But Arisa, I never knew that you had magical abilities."

"It sort of came with the 'being dead' thing." Since Lindy had shattered the professor's binding spell, Arisa was able to work the bolts loose and free Suzuka from the gurney. "Are you okay?" she asked, helping the other girl to her feet.

"I was so scared!" Suzuka exclaimed, seizing Arisa in a fierce hug the instant she was upright. "When I saw that monster attacking you--and then when the professor caught you with that spell my heart nearly stopped!"

"Me? What about you? Did that lunatic do anything to you? Do you need any medical help?"

"I'm all right, I think. When I was awake he just ran a couple of tests on me with some kind of scanning devices, so nothing really bad happened. Besides," she added softly and cupped Arisa's cheek in her palm, "I have everything I need right here." She drew her girlfriend in for a warm, lingering kiss.

"Suzuka..."

Lindy interrupted them, chuckling.

"Well, that's something else I didn't know. I hate to spoil the reunion, but we need to get away from here before the fire department and police respond to the alarms. Before that, though, I think we need to destroy these computers. Sharing TSAB technology isn't necessarily an offense, but leaving it in the hands of these people is extremely irresponsible."

"Yeah, if magical technology is going to get into Earth's hands, I sure don't want it to be through the Sato Institute Special Projects Group!" Arisa said. "And Morris has been stopped, since I'm sure whatever he was up to wasn't going to be good for anyone, so that's a good thing."

"I just wish it hadn't cost so many lives," said Suzuka. "You, and Falin, and I even feel a little bit sorry for the Sato people and the kidnappers."

"Well, I don't," Arisa said. "You lay down in scum, you end up covered in rot. And Falin's not dead."

"What?" Suzuka's face lit up with excitement.

"Nah, her body's a wreck but Noel got her memory core out intact. It's mostly a matter of building her a new body now. That's why I came alone, because Noel's making sure she's all right."

"I'm so glad."

"So come on, let's take Lindy's advice and get you home and out of these wet things."

"Arisa, so bold..." Suzuka with a shy tone of voice but laughing eyes.

"Argh, I didn't mean it like _that_!" Only now that Suzuka had said it, Arisa couldn't help but notice the way her girlfriend's white blouse clung to her torso.

"Too bad."

"...I've created a monster," Arisa laughed, and claimed another kiss to make sure Suzuka knew she was joking. And it was easier than breaking down in tears of relief in front of Lindy. A girl had to have _some_ dignity, after all.

* * *

Elantra was waiting for him on the beach as promised. The moonlight glinted off the waves and painted the sand silver, adding a touch of mystery to the scene that Professor Morris didn't even notice.

"Excellent! Yes, yes, you're here!" he panted.

"My employer had the chance to review your submission, so coming here was fortuitous," she responded. "Now, what's all this about? Why did you need a face-to-face meeting?"

"I need your help to relocate," Morris said. "Those stupid, _shortsighted_ fools in the TSAB found me! First the subject's annoying _pest_ of a friend, and then an _official_ raid destroyed my lab." A solid-light keyboard appeared beneath his fingers and a few strokes opened a screen that showed the TSAB officer who'd ruined his plans.

"Lindy Harlaown," Elantra said. "A retired admiral, currently Director of Liaisons, who settled on this world and now maintains an informal TSAB field office here in addition to her regular duties."

"You know her. You _know_ her?"

"We have better sources of intelligence about local conditions than you do," she said dismissively. "I presume you took precautions against being followed?"

"A series of short-range _teleports_, enough to shake off any tracking capacity, even if they had a ship's sensors."

"Which they probably don't."

"But that _fool_ Tengu was no doubt captured by them. My familiar!"

Elantra nodded.

"Then the TSAB could follow your connection right to you, given the proper time and equipment. Even if you went to Africa or Europe or the Americas, it wouldn't be enough."

"Exactly. I need to _relocate_ to another _world_ entirely. There I can begin again. I can press on with my _work_!"

"And you want my employer's support for that." It wasn't a question.

"Yes, yes! My breakthroughs, my _vision_ can't be stopped now! They can't be set aside just because of stupid, stupid, stupid restrictions on necessary experiments! Shortsighted _fools_, all of them, to place outdated morality before _science_!"

"My employer would have to agree with that," Elantra noted. "However, there is a problem."

Morris didn't bother to hide his disgust.

"_Money._ Concerned only with how to _profit_ from knowledge, like all _corporations_--"

She shook her head.

"On the contrary. It's a purely scientific question. The top mind in TSAB-administered space has, as I said, reviewed what you provided. Your work with non-traditional methods of tapping and expressing magical power is intriguing, but the examples you cite from this world are limited and inefficient. Ultimately, they are a curiosity. And your research into the genetic origins behind the natives' tendency towards extraordinary magical potential is superficial at best. The ancient Belkan records we've uncovered, fragmentary as they are, go much further. So you see, there's not much point in financing someone whose 'breakthroughs' don't even reach our current level of knowledge."

"Impossible!" Morris screeched. "No corporation could have access to--"

Elantra's lips twisted into a thin smile.

"But, Professor, I don't represent a corporation."

Her image seemed to swirl, and in the next instant he was staring at a blonde woman in a close-fitting bodysuit in shades of blue. _But how? I didn't detect any illusion magic--?_

"The Doctor believes it would be very inconvenient if the Bureau was able to trace his location through you. Particularly since the association with an inept failure like yourself would be too humiliating for him to..."

Due sighed. Morris's eyes were already glazing over.

"That's the trouble with you. For as long as I've known you, you can't be bothered to listen."

She slipped her clawed hand out of the dead man's chest, then quickly searched his body and removed his personal communications unit. Leaving him crumpled where he lay, she walked down towards the shore, where a violet-haired child waited patiently for her, no reaction on her face despite witnessing a bloody murder.

"Come, Lutecia, take me home," Due said. "There's nothing fun here."

* * *

**Arisa & Friends Omake Theater!**

_Scenes From Uminari City_

"Again! This is the third time that the Clover Organization has been humiliated by these Takamachis and their friends. Well, no more! We're going to teach them a lesson. The youngest child's gym class scores prove that _she_, at least, isn't a martial artist. She'll be easy prey!"

- - - - -

"Your Honor, the defendant is charged with one count of battery and one count of misdemeanor sexual contact. Offense committed at 1:41 p.m., arrest at...1:42 p.m.?"

"Believe me, I wouldn't have tried to feel up the waitress if I'd known that maid café was the local cop bar!"

- - - - -

"So this year's graduating class includes an air combat mage from a family of ninja, an air combat mage who's an alien clone, the inheritor of a centuries-old tome of black magic and its Guardian Knights, a vampire raised by androids, and a half-foreign ghost. Whatever happened to the days when a transfer student from Osaka was something unusual and exciting?"

- - - - -

**"Accel Shooter."**

"You know, Raising Heart, we should thank Kyouya-niichan for lending us his villains. I always feel like I'm getting out of shape here on Earth without any live-fire exercises."

**"It was very courteous of them, too, my master."**

"Think...nothing...of...it..."


	15. Chapter 15

Lindy Harlaown's home didn't compare to the luxury of the Tsukimura mansion, but it was nicely outfitted, with chairs and couches sitting around a low coffee table in the living room. A landing ran around three sides of the room on the upper story, and there was a fireplace in the fourth wall. The part Arisa liked best, though, was the homey touches: photos of Lindy and her late husband Clyde, their son Chrono, his wife Amy, their twins, and Fate, as well as assorted little knickknacks and bric-a-brac. Some of the items didn't match the decor, which probably meant that they held some special sentimental value.

"Really, Noel, you didn't have to help," Lindy said as the two of them brought in the refreshments, Lindy with the tea tray and Noel with a platter of snacks. "You're a guest here."

The android maid smiled at her.

"No, really, Mrs. Harlaown, I enjoy helping out."

They set the trays down on the coffee table and sat. Arisa and Suzuka were already next to each other on the sofa, hands clasped, while Arf was perched on the edge of a chair. A laptop computer equipped with webcam set at the far end of the table.

"Are you doing all right, Falin?" Lindy asked.

"I think so," issued from the laptop's speaker. "I wish there was a way to change the voice on this software to sound like me, though. It's really strange hearing me talk like someone else!"

"At least it's female," Arisa pointed out. "You'd sound even weirder as a guy."

"Yeah. It's neat being able to talk remotely like this, though! When I get my new body, do you think I can get an upgrade to my wireless capacity?"

"I'll ask Aunt Sakura about it," Suzuka promised. "You certainly earned it, Falin."

"But I was just doing my job, Miss Suzuka! It wouldn't be right to reward me for following my programming hierarchy."

"Don't be silly, Falin. There's a significant difference between doing what one _must_ do and what one _wants_ to do, even for an artificial intelligence," Lindy told her while settling into her seat. "There's a reason that we stress the importance of mages becoming good partners with their Devices, after all."

The laptop display, which had been showing a swirl of color, suddenly restricted itself to shades between salmon and crimson. _An android's "brain" blushing over the Internet?_ Arisa thought. _Now I've seen everything._

Noel caught her look.

"The interface is designed to detect Falin's emotional state and react accordingly," she said, "just as her original body would react via facial expression and body language. It may seem trivial, but in fact the better she's able to communicate with the outside world, the better it is for her overall mental health during this period of disassociation."

"Oh." That actually sort of made sense. "Hey, speaking of Falin, whatever happened to those freaks in the masks? I never saw them again after I ducked them in the hall."

"Neither did I," Lindy said. "I believe they fled the building after their encounter with you, along with the other local employees who weren't caught in the lab fight."

"Shouldn't you be hunting them down, then?"

Lindy shook her head.

"The TSAB's purview doesn't extend to the pursuit of local criminals on a non-administered world when they aren't involved in dimensional incidents."

"We were able to tentatively identify them," Noel elaborated. "They're called the Hand of the Red Phoenix, a mercenary group based in Singapore and Malaysia known to be associated with the Clover Organization. Miss Shinobu and the Takamachi siblings had several encounters with the latter group, an international criminal and political syndicate," she added for Lindy and Arf's benefit.

"Conspirators and weirdos," Arisa summed up. "So what's the connection with Morris?"

"We can't be certain, but we believe he simply subcontracted with them for more competent help when his first kidnapping attempt failed. By now, we assume that they've fled the country, as they have no reason to stay and, as shown by their _not_ getting involved in the fight between Miss Arisa and Tengu, no desire to be part of this incident once it escalated to outright magical combat."

"Hmm...I'd have liked to get back at them for kidnapping Suzuka and nearly killing Falin, but having the big, scary mercenaries with their longcoats and creepy masks running like scared bunnies is pretty good, too," Arisa decided.

Lindy poured tea for Suzuka, Arf, and herself. Arisa felt it was kind of ironic, really, that three of the four guests weren't capable of eating, so it was really all for Suzuka's benefit.

"Now Morris, though," she continued, "you are after him, right? I mean, he's a Midchildan crook, isn't he?"

"Technically, he's from Administered World 11, Florinis, but yes, his dimensional crimes were within our jurisdiction."

"Was? Were?" Arisa picked up on the changed tense.

"He was murdered last night," Lindy explained. "We found the body. We first realized that it had happened when Tengu reverted into being an ordinary crow, since a familiar's magical powers, enhanced intelligence, and extended lifespan are all due to their link with their master."

"_Murdered?_" Falin yelped.

"Do you know who might have been responsible?" Suzuka asked.

Lindy shook her head.

"No, I don't. But he had access to Midchildan magical technology in his lab, equipment that isn't available on Earth and costs a considerable amount. I suspect that he had backers, corporate, government, or private support for his experiments in much the same way that the Sato Institute supported him here."

"Then you believe that his backers killed him once you, and therefore the TSAB, entered the picture in order to conceal their identities and involvement in Morris's crimes?" Noel speculated.

"That's our working hypothesis. Unfortunately, with Morris's lab equipment destroyed, Tengu's mind wiped by his reversion to animal state, Morris himself dead, and even his personal Device or communications unit missing, there's nothing to connect him to anyone."

"So it's over, then," Suzuka said with relief.

"Not quite," Arisa said. "My dad's taken a direct personal interest in what's been going on at the Sato Institute. There won't be any police called in, for the good of the company--"

"I'd just as well not have to go through all that, either," Suzuka admitted.

"I kind of figured you'd feel that way. Anyway, you can bet that a fair number of people there are going to find it really hard to find any work requiring more trust than working the counter at McDonald's."

"You told your father about this?" Suzuka asked.

"Well...some of it. Mostly it was the part about me being dead now and how I got that way. I blamed the kidnappers instead of you, of course, since I didn't want to tell my parents about you being a vampire. And I left Dad thinking they wanted you for blackmail purposes, to get some of your aunt's technological breakthroughs and then claim them as their own for fun and profit."

"That was a good cover story," Falin admired.

"Yeah, maybe I should go to law school if I can keep coming up with lies and excuses like that," Arisa joked. "Anyway, they were totally freaked by the ghost thing, as you can guess, but seeing as how I was sort of all right Dad decided to focus his attention on the serious business of revenge. That should clean up whatever loose ends are left here on Earth, since Morris and Tengu were the ones which had the really dangerous knowledge about Suzuka and they aren't talking."

"Well," Arf said, "that sounds like that wraps that all up, then!" She slurped down the rest of her tea.

"Actually, I have a question," Suzuka said.

"What's that?"

"Well, Ms. Lindy, when you broke into the warehouse, you arrested Professor Morris in the name of the TSAB. But how did you know that you could do that?"

"Hey, yeah!" Arisa added. "And besides that, you knew his first name. None of us even knew that, so how did you find out?"

Lindy smiled and sipped her tea.

"Well, I admit, when I went there, I did it not as a Bureau officer but as the mother of one of your close friends."

"Wouldn't you have gotten in trouble for that?"

"Possibly, but for your sake and Suzuka's I thought it was the right decision."

"Then we owe you even more of our thanks, Ms. Lindy," Suzuka said.

"Aw, come on," Arf said. "We're all friends here, right? That means we help each other out. You don't need to say please and thank you for that stuff. Truth be told, I was hoping the bad guys would be a little tougher so I'd have the chance to switch to adult form and kick a little butt!" She punched her fist into her palm while everyone laughed, even Noel.

"In any case, before we went in, we scried the area to see what we were getting into, and when I recognized that the familiar you were fighting, Arisa, _was_ a familiar, I linked Morris's picture to our image database, which revealed his identity--and incidentally, gave me the legitimate authority to act."

"I get it! So this way, you don't have to take it on the chin from your higher-ups for helping us out."

"Yeah; she'll probably get a commendation or something instead," Arf chipped in. "You know, 'Retired Officer Hunts Rogue Mage,' with a big story about how she was so dedicated that, aware there was no TSAB unit within range, she smashed his operation personally." She sniped a Milk-Bone off the tea tray and bit down. Arisa had to grin at dog treats being served next to the cucumber sandwiches and lemon cookies, but hey, a good hostess knew her guests and adapted properly.

"I'm just glad it's over!" Falin said. "I don't want anyone threatening Miss Suzuka, especially when I'm waiting to be rebuilt and can't protect her. But I have to say it's neat to have Internet access this way!"

Arisa chuckled, remembering Falin's earlier request for a wireless upgrade.

"Just think, Suzuka, you could be the first family in the city to have a Bluetooth-compatible maid!"

"Geez," Falin pouted through Suzuka and Arf's giggles.

The tea party broke up not long after. Leaving the house, they walked towards the Tsukimura car. As Noel opened the rear door, though, Suzuka spoke up.

"Um, Noel, would you mind going on without us? I'd like to walk home with Arisa, if that's all right." She said it softly, with a catch in her voice that Arisa didn't like, but Noel either didn't notice or, more likely, didn't consider it her business.

"Very well. Please call me if you change your mind and need to be picked up." She closed the door, then got in the front, settled her laptop into the passenger sear, and started the car.

When she'd gone, Arisa turned to Suzuka and asked, "Okay, what's going on?"

Suzuka smiled a fake smile at her, one that wasn't likely to fool anyone, let alone Arisa, and said, "It's a warm, sunny day. I thought it'd be nice to walk."

Arisa looked at her dubiously, but figured that the Harlaowns' driveway wasn't the best place for such an argument. She shrugged.

"All right, then."

They walked along in near-silence for quite some time. Occasionally one of them would make some remark, but Suzuka's mind was clearly on something and Arisa wanted to know what it was too much for her to have any patience with small talk. Not that she ever really did. It wasn't until they were walking along the winding stretch of highway that ran along the coast that Suzuka stopped in her tracks.

"Hey, what is it?" Arisa said, turning back.

"This...this is where it happened, isn't it?"

"Where what--oh. I guess it could be. I wasn't really paying attention, just following the van along. Is that what this is about? I thought we'd been over it a dozen times already."

Suzuka shook her head. Her eyes were tearing up.

"No, that's not...that's not it."

In the next instant she'd flung her arms around Arisa and was sobbing against the taller girl's chest.

"Suzuka? What's wrong?"

"I don't want you to go!" she wailed.

"Huh?" was Arisa's brilliant reply. She wished it didn't make her sound so dimwitted, but she was genuinely confused. "Why would I go anywhere? Is this about college?"

"No! I mean...it's over now. Morris is dead, and Tengu is just a bird, and all those people who helped them will be getting fired so they can't hurt anybody else. You've achieved your revenge so...doesn't that mean you'll..." She sniffled noisily. "...P-pass on soon?"

"What, you mean--? Wow, I hadn't even thought about that." Arisa looked down at herself. "I don't _feel_ like I'm going to vanish anytime soon. I mean, I don't see any weird light I'm supposed to move towards or death spirits calling out to me or something. If I was going to pass on, I wasted a lot of time explaining all this to my parents last night!"

She'd meant it as a joke, but it fell flat. Suzuka let out another sobbing wail and squeezed harder.

"Arisa!"

"I'm serious, Suzuka. It hadn't so much as crossed my mind until you mentioned it just now. I don't feel 'fulfilled' or anything like that, that's certain. So if I'm waiting around on earth because my soul has unfinished business, then taking down those creeps wasn't it."

Suzuka lifted her tear-stained face so she could look up at Arisa.

"Then...then what could it be?"

"Well, they do say that some ghosts return to Earth to look out for their loved ones."

She slid one hand up to cup Suzuka's cheek.

"For example, it seems that the only way to keep my girlfriend from falling into the pit of cliched vampire angst is for me to stay right here with her. Because, let me tell you, that would not be a pretty picture. That brooding, tormented routine is so old Shinobu would be embarrassed to be seen with you. And just imagine what Hayate would say about it!"

"Oh, _Arisa!_"

"So you're just going to have to get used to--mmmph!" She found herself silenced by a very thorough kiss. "Apparently you like the idea?" she said about four minutes later.

"Wasn't my demonstration explicit enough?"

"Just checking. I'm glad, though. Like I told you before, that's my life you're living right now, so you're pretty much going to have to put up with me from now on."

"Good!" Suzuka hooked her arm through Arisa's, leaned her head up against the ghost's shoulder, and they started walking again.

"It's kind of funny."

"What is, Arisa?"

"Well, just a few days ago I was getting really depressed over the future and what I was going to do with the rest of my life. And now, I don't feel bad at all."

"Well, you are dead, so you don't _have_ a rest of your life to worry about."

"Hey, I make the ghost jokes around here!" Arisa laughed.

"Yes, but I love you, so that gives me second-hand joke rights."

"No it doesn't! But I love you, too, so I'll forgive you this time."

And she leaned over and gave Suzuka a kiss for good measure.

* * *

**Arisa & Friends Omake Roadshow!**

"Arisa, I was wondering..." Suzuka began hesitantly as they walked along.

"Yes?"

"What are you going to tell your parents...about us, I mean? Noel and Falin don't care, and Shinobu already knows that I'm gay, but your family's a different matter. I don't want to make things hard on you."

Arisa shrugged.

"There's no reason to beat around the bush. I told them straight out that I was in love with you, that we were dating seriously, and that I was sure it was more than just a crush."

"You told them already? I'm sorry; I wanted to be with you for support."

"Nah, it went fine. I tell you, once I got through with the part of the conversation where I explained being a ghost and that it was people at one of Dad's companies responsible for my death, the 'I'm bisexual and dating my best friend' part didn't raise any eyebrows."

"I guess it really is all in the timing."


	16. Extra

_This is a special "extra" chapter, hence the name. It's not part of the main storyline, but goes to explain certain things about Arisa. You could think of it as one of the special features of the DVD release of the main story. It's better than a textless opening theme, at least, even if it's more omake-ish than otherwise. And it should clear up some of the technical details._

* * *

The table slid out with a soft humming sound, carrying Arisa Bannings out of the tubelike structure. It looked something like an MRI chamber, but she knew that it was actually some piece of Midchildan medical technology.

Shamal was waiting for her, that perky smile on her face that they seemed to teach in medical school.

"So what's the verdict, doctor?" Arisa quipped. "Will I live?"

Everyone else in the room--Suzuka, Hayate, Nanoha, Fate, Arf, and Reinforce Zwei--groaned loudly.

"Arisa-chan, we know that becoming a ghost would probably make perverse and unnatural changes to your mental state, but did it have to be your sense of humor?"

"Well, you're the expert on perverse and unnatural, Hayate," Arisa teased, sitting up.

"Hey, you're the one who said you wanted Shamal to give you a _thorough examination_."

"You know, I'd have been happy to do that for you if you asked, Arisa," Suzuka said with a fake pout.

"I've got a nurse costume that would just fit you, Suzuka," Hayate chimed in.

"Really? Could I borrow it this weekend?"

Arisa looked from her girlfriend to Hayate and back again.

"You two are _way_ too much alike for comfort."

"Is anyone," Shamal spoke up in a deceptively mild voice, "interested in the test results, or would you prefer to keep chattering?"

"I'd like to know!" Rein said, raising her hand. Everyone else was wisely keeping their chattering mouths shut.

"Well, as far as I can deduce, what happened when you died, Arisa, is that your body spontaneously expressed a Linker Core."

"Huh? What?"

"It's what we mages have," Fate explained, "that lets us connect to our stored mana and convert it into effects in the real world--what we call spells."

"Wait--so I'm a mage now?"

Shamal shook her head.

"Not exactly. It seems that when you died, your Linker Core used your existing mana to construct an alternative body for you, a mana-based existence. Remember that the body itself was clinically dead and impossible to reanimate even for magic, at least so far as we know. The process is not _entirely_ different from when the Book of Darkness's defense program absorbed Fate during their battle. Probably the closest analogy I can come up with to describe your present existence is that you're like what I was when we Wolkenritter were still part of the Guardian Knight program within the Book."

"You had physical bodies, though, even then," Hayate said. "You had hearts that beat and you breathed air--"

Shamal nodded, cutting her off.

"That's true, Mistress. That's because we were projected by an extraordinarily powerful Lost Logia. When Reinforce granted us an autonomous existence, she was able to replicate that. Arisa exists autonomously, but without the raw power of the Tome of the Night Sky, she only expresses a magical existence, not a physical one. That is why magic damage is quite lethal to her. If her magical energy is depleted by magic-damage attacks, there's nothing left behind to restore it."

"You'd better take it easy if you're teaching her how to fight," Rein said, quite seriously, to Nanoha.

"C'mon, I'm not _that_ bad..."

Ignoring the aside, Shamal turned to Arisa.

"Do you understand what I mean? If you were to, for example, pick up this pen, you wouldn't actually be picking it up. You'd instead be exerting a magical force to move it around. That force conforms to what _was_ the shape of your body, largely as a mental shortcut for you. Having a template, you see, makes the various processes of your existence run more efficiently."

"So if I practice, then I might be able to pick stuff up from across the room without touching it?"

Shamal frowned.

"Probably not. You'd be able to learn matter-manipulation spells, but extending the effects of your force beyond the bounds of the template by will alone would be very difficult and extremely draining. It's the same reason why you can make certain cosmetic alterations in your appearance--clothing and so on--but not completely shape-shift or create items that can be separated from yourself."

"Oh, too bad," Suzuka said.

"I don't _want_ to know what you were thinking," Arisa groaned.

"I do!" Hayate chirped. "Tell me later?"

"Nyahaha...I think Arisa-chan is going to be in for an interesting time of it."

"I have a question," Arf spoke up, much to Arisa's gratitude. "How is it that she doesn't show up on security cameras and stuff?"

Shamal smiled.

"Oh, that's easy enough. As I said, she doesn't have a physical existence, and the mana construct that is her 'body' doesn't interact with visible light, or even into the infrared or ultraviolet spectrum. So she doesn't cast a reflection, or have a shadow, or show up on camera."

"So how can _we_ see her?"

"Because she's constantly projecting a low-grade telepathic image of her existence perceptible by anyone within range around her. It's a field effect, not targeted to specific minds, so that any living creature who enters the field can perceive her."

"And artificial intelligences, too!" Rein noted.

"That's me, a walking Turing test," Arisa said. "Hey, wait, how come Falin could see me at Lindy's, when she used that laptop to communicate through?"

"She couldn't," Suzuka said. "She could hear, though, because when you talk you do really speak. Right, Shamal?"

"That's right; she moves the air to create the vibrations that create the sound of speech."

"This is all so weird," Arisa said. "It sounds to me like Morris grabbed the wrong test subject."

"Maybe."

"So why me? I mean, why not _him_, for instance? Or those goons who tried to kidnap Suzuka? What makes me special?"

That question didn't have so many easy answers, it seemed.

"I...honestly don't know," Shamal finally admitted.

"There's a lot we don't know, despite all of our technology," Fate observed. "The processes by which past civilizations created Lost Logia, and all new things that people won't discover until the future. Many things about magic can still be described as 'occult' or 'supernatural' from our point of view."

"We were pulled into that barrier together during the Book of Darkness incident," Suzuka said. "Maybe it was because of your potential to become a ghost that you were taken, too."

"Maybe..."

"I have a better question," Hayate contributed.

"34C," Suzuka answered.

"_Hayate!_" Arisa wondered if she or Fate had the redder face. Everyone else was more of an orange shade in the light cast by Arisa's suddenly flame-wreathed body.

"Geez, that wasn't the question, honestly!" Hayate protested.

"I'm sorry, Arisa," Suzuka said, looking down. "I shouldn't have gone so far..."

"I--" _Wait a minute; _she_ mouthed off, so why do _I_ suddenly feel guilty? Being in love really screws with your head!_

"Maybe we could all just take it easy with teasing Arisa-chan until we're done?" Nanoha suggested. "Shamal's doing a big favor for her, for all of us, and we're not helping things."

"Sorry, Arisa-chan, Shamal. It's mostly my fault, I know." Hayate sounded genuinely contrite. "I'll be serious."

"What was your question, Mistress?" Shamal asked.

"Well..." Hayate tapped her fingers together nervously. "It's just...when a mage uses her magic, her body naturally restores her Linker Core as part of the process of rest and healing. But Arisa doesn't have a body, and the way you explain it, everything she does in just existing takes magic, and..."

"How is it that I'm still here instead of going poof?" Arisa finished for her.

"Well, yes, essentially."

Shamal smiled, a bit of an unusual response under the circumstances.

"Suzuka, since you started dating Arisa, have you been drinking blood more often than usual?"

This time it was her turn to blush.

"Yes," she said shyly.

"Congratulations, you two really are perfect for each other!" Shamal said brightly.

"I don't understand," Arisa said.

"I get it!" Nanoha said excitedly. "It's like in ghost stories where a man has a ghost lover, but he starts to get sick the longer it goes on because she's draining his life force!"

Arisa blinked.

"Wait...you don't mean..."

Suzuka's eyes widened, her blush starting to fade.

"Yes, I do," Shamal said. "You're taking mana from her in the same way that a familiar draws mana from its master; there's that kind of bond between you, probably enhanced by intimate contact, except that unlike a familiar you're the dominant party, controlling the bond. If Suzuka was an ordinary non-mage, then it very likely _would_ make her sick, just like in the stories Nanoha mentioned. But because Suzuka is a vampire, her physiology already has a way to replenish the stolen energy."

"I'm so glad!" Suzuka exclaimed. She was smiling, now; her face looked almost radiant.

"Glad!" Arisa exclaimed. "She basically just said I'm sucking away _your_ life to preserve my own!"

"I know! It means...it means that I can make it up to you. I mean, I'm the reason you're like this, but now I can help _save_ your life." She clasped Arisa's hands in hers. "Thank you so much, Shamal; the only time I've been this happy is when Arisa first said that she loved me."

"Suzuka--"

There had been about eight things wrong with all that, starting with the assumption that Suzuka had anything to apologize or make up for. But Arisa was learning; regardless of how mistaken her beloved was, this wasn't the time or place for that fight.

"Yes?"

She shook her head.

"Nothing. I'm glad that it makes you happy."

Arisa pulled Suzuka close and let the other girl nestle her face into the crook of her neck, then stroked her long, violet hair.

"Can you come over this evening?" Suzuka murmured, audible only because her lips were so close to Arisa's ear. "I'd like to thank you by making a special dinner."

Arisa's hand paused in mid-stroke.

"Dinner? But I don't _eat_, and--"

None of them said a word, until Arisa broke into a blush, realizing what Suzuka had meant--and that, moreover, while Suzuka had said her double-entendre for Arisa's ears alone, Arisa had used a normal speaking voice. Arf, Shamal, and the Three Aces dissolved into helpless laughter.

"Arisa, I'm sorry!" Suzuka--_not_ laughing--said at once. "I wasn't trying to embarrass you!"

Arisa grinned sheepishly and traced her fingers down the line of Suzuka's cheekbone.

"I know. I can't get mad when I go and tease _myself_ now, can I? Besides," she added, "I love you."

And since she figured she couldn't much more embarrassed anyway, Arisa took the chance to capture Suzuka's lips in a deep, loving kiss.

* * *

_A/N: Just for clarity, when Shamal speaks of the Book of Darkness, she means the corrupted Lost Logia as a whole. When she speaks of Reinforce, she means the AI that is the book's Administration Program, either independently or when Reinforce controls the entire book. Rein Ein was a friend, while the Book was a millstone around all their necks, and neither she nor the other Wolkenritter nor Hayate would confuse the two._


End file.
